Bible Songs — Miscellaneous

Hark! hark! my soul

Hark! hark! my soul, angelic songs are swelling

No. 1212
Tune HARK! HARK! MY SOUL.
Words F. W. Faber, 1849.
Music Wm. F. Sherwin.
Key A-flat major
Singing key G♭ major
Time 2/2
4 stanzas

Words

Hark! hark! my soul, angelic songs are swellingO'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat shore;How sweet the truth those blessed strains are telling,Of that new life when sin shall be no more!

Chorus.

Angels of Jesus, angels of light,Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night.

Onward we go, for still we hear them singing,"Come weary souls, for Jesus bids you come;"And thro' the dark, its echoes sweetly ringing,The music of the gospel leads us home.

Far, far away, like bells at evening pealing,The voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea;And laden souls by thousands meekly stealing,Kind Shepherd, turn their weary steps to thee.

Angels, sing on! your faithful watches keeping,Sing us sweet fragments of the songs above,Till morning's joy shall end the night of weeping,And life's long shadows break in cloudless love.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: hymn number «1212» (large, left), title «HARK! HARK! MY SOUL.» centred (condensed capitals with larger initials; the type's exclamation marks look like «I»); under it the epigraph in two lines, «"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."—Luke 2 : 13, 14.»; «F. W. FABER, 1849.» at the left and «WM. F. SHERWIN.» at the right (capitals and small capitals); no meter, no reference line and no running head are printed. The four stanzas are interlinear, «1.»–«4.» before the lines of system 1; the chorus, headed «CHORUS.», is printed once (its first words «Angels of Jesus,» on the second lyric row at the end of system 3, the rest in system 4) and is sung after every stanza. «By permission.» is printed under the music, above the page number «430». The print sets a thin space before «;», «!» and «:» («shore ;», «on !», «2 : 13»); it is closed up here. Words divided under the notes are joined («an-gel-ic», «even-ing», «sweet-ly», «shad-ows», «cloud-less» → «angelic», «evening», «sweetly», «shadows», «cloudless»); «wave-beat» keeps its hyphen (a compound; see uncertainties.md). Several word spaces missing in the print («Hark!hark!», «O'erearth's», «hearthem», «Comewea-ry», «soundso'erlandandsea», «blessedstrains», «life'slong») are restored. Each stanza is set in its four verse lines, each beginning with a capital as printed (the print runs the lines on across the staves). Spelling («thro'»), punctuation (the comma after «soul», the quotation of stanza 2) and capitals are the print's.