Whose Name Is Called Emmanuel (Day Nine)

For the ninth day of Christmas, we have an Incarnation text that seems almost too poetic to be used as a hymn, but I like it. The poet Dora Greenwell (1821-1888) wrote with "intense religious feeling," and may never have intended for her work to be sung, but hymnal editors find their material where they will. Greenwell's most well-known poem to be used as a hymn is I am not skilled to understand, which is used in many more hymnals from the last fifty years than it was in her own time.  Once one of your poems is taken up in a hymnal, others will usually follow.

And art thou come with us to dwell,
Our Hope, our Guide, our Love, our Word?
And is thy name Emmanuel,
God present with this world restored?

The heart is glad for thee! It knows
None now shall bid it err or mourn;
And o’er its desert breaks the rose
In triumph o’er the grieving thorn.

Thou bringest all again; with thee
Is light, is space, is breadth and room
For each thing fair, beloved, and free
To have its hour of life and bloom.

The world is glad for thee! the heart
Is glad for thee! and all is well,
And fixed and sure, because thou art,
Whose name is called Emmanuel.

Dora Greenwell, 1874
Tune: ST. ALKMUND (L.M.)     
Easy Music for Church Choirs, 1853

Dora Greenwell never felt that her poetry met her own high standards, but this opinion was probably not shared by her literary friends. She greatly admired the work of her friend Christina Rossetti, of whom she wrote:

Thou hast filled me a golden cup
With a drink divine that glows,
With the bloom that is flowing up
From the heart of the folding rose...




Eight Years Ago: Elizabeth Rundle Charles

Seven Years Ago: Lo! how a Rose e'er blooming

Six Years Ago: Elizabeth Rundle Charles

Four Years Ago: Elizabeth Rundle Charles

One Year Ago: We celebrate the day

Love Shall Be Our Token (Day Eleven)

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God, love to all,
Love, the universal sign.

Christina Georgina Rossetti, 1885; alt.

Tune: GARTAN (6.7.6.7.)

Traditional Irish melody

For the Eleventh Day of Christmas we have another song of the Incarnation by the English poet

Christina Rossetti, which was published in her collection Time Flies, A Reading Diary (1885).

It was first used as a hymn in the Oxford Hymn Book (1908) but was probably spread most

widely by its later inclusion in the popular Songs of Praise (1925), edited by Percy Dearmer.

The last line here is actually Rossetti's original version, which she later altered, but which I

decided to restore.

The Irish melody GARTAN is often sung with this text, though there have been other tunes

and also several different anthem settings for choirs, by composers such as Harold Darke, John

Rutter, and Leo Sowerby. Research posted at the Musica Sacra forum of the Church Music

Association of America suggests that GARTAN had earlier been matched to the Latin com-

munion hymn Sancti venite in the eighteenth century.

Six Years Ago: In the lonely midnight

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Today we celebrate the birthday of Christina Rossetti, less famed as a hymnwriter than as a poet, though a few of her poems have been made into hymns and anthems. She is considered a major poet of the Victorian era and there is much information online about her should you want to read further.

She was born in 1830, into a family of writers that included her father, sister, and two brothers, all of whom published either poetry or biography. Her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a renowned painter as well (the portrait of Christina here is his).

Christina, her mother, and sister Maria all became devout Anglicans (her sister even becoming a nun). Christina was especially drawn to "high church" practice, and followed the church calendar faithfully, observing saints' days and times of fasting. She broke two separate engagements because the men did not live up to her religious expectations.

Her best known book of poetry is the somewhat surreal Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), but some feel that her devotional and spiritual poetry in the Anglican literary tradition should be seen as a greater accomplishment.

This poem, titled by her A Christmas Carol, has become her most well-known hymn:

In the bleak midwinter,
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold you,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When you come to reign.
In the bleak midwinter
A stable place sufficed
The Living God incarnate,
Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But your mother only,
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped her beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give you,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a seer,
I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give you:
Give my heart.

Christina Rossetti, 1871; alt.
Tune: CRANHAM (Irregular)
Gustav Holst, 1906

Composer Gustav Holst contributed three tunes to Ralph Vaughan Williams's English Hymnal in 1906, including this one. In 1921, he arranged the tune THAXTED from a melody in the "Jupiter" section of his great orchestral work The Planets to go with the text I vow to thee, my country.

And yes, I know this is a Christmas hymn in Advent, but it is Rossetti's best-loved hymn (and it's not Sunday worship here). She did in fact write an Advent poem, This Advent moon shines cold and clear, but I 'm not sure it would make a particularly good hymn. There are some well-crafted lines, but it lacks the simplicity of her Christmas Carol.