Let No Harp Remain Unstrung

I thought there was a composer to write about yesterday but online and offline research determined that there was a typo at the Cyber Hymnal site. We'll get to him later in the month.

So here's another Advent hymn, a favorite of mine that may not be as familiar as some.

Christ is coming! Let creation
From its groans and travail cease;
Let the glorious proclamation
Hope restore and faith increase;
Christ is coming! Christ is coming!
Come, O blessèd Source of Peace!

Earth can now but tell the story
Of thy bitter cross and pain;
We shall yet behold thy glory,
When thou comest back to reign;
Christ is coming! Christ is coming!
Let each heart repeat the strain.

Long thine exiles have been pining,
Far from rest, and home, and thee;
Now, in heav’nly vestures shining,
They their loving Shepherd see;
Christ is coming! Christ is coming!
Haste the joyous jubilee.

With that blessèd hope before us,
Let no harp remain unstrung;
Let the mighty Advent chorus
Onward roll from tongue to tongue:
Christ is coming! Christ is coming!
Come, O Jesus, quickly come!

John Ross MacDuff, 1853, alt.
Tune: UNSER HERRSCHER (8.7.8.7.8.7.)
Joachim Neander, 1680

Author John Ross MacDuff wrote several books on religious and scriptural themes, many of which you can see on Google.

Joachim Neander was a theologian and eventually a pastor in the German Reformed Church. One year before his death at age 30 he published a collection of 71 hymns, some with his own tunes, including this familiar one, which is sometimes called NEANDER. Though I never made the connection before now, a river valley near Dusseldorf was renamed in his honor, and in 1856, prehistoric fossilized remains were found there that were named Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man). There's a odd hymnic association for you.