Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless
Thy hungering, pilgrim flock
With manna in the wilderness,
With water from the rock.
We would not live by bread alone,
But by thy Word of grace,
In strength of which we travel on
To our abiding place.
Be known to us in breaking bread,
But do not then depart;
Savior, abide with us, and spread
Thy table in our heart.
A Collection of Hymns (Philadelphia), 1832;
v.3, James Montgomery, 1825; alt.
Tune: ST. AGNES (C.M.)
John Bacchus Dykes, 1866
I sometimes wish that there were more well-known hymns about the Exodus, one of my favorite stories from the Bible. But I also sometimes forget that there are hymns such as this one which weave some of the imagery of the Exodus story into other themes. It's a communion hymn, no doubt, addressed to Jesus, but using the Old Testament images of a traveling people fed by the hand of God.
This hymn was assembled from two different sources, apparently by the editors of the Episcopal hymnal of 1872. The first two anonymous verses are from an American Moravian hymnal, and the last is by English hymnwriter James Montgomery. The well-known tune ST AGNES by the prolific John Bacchus Dykes has been used for more than a dozen different texts over the years.P.S. The painting above, Moses Smiteth the Rock in the Desert (from Exodus 17:5-7) is by French painter James J.J. Tissot.
2 comments:
I agree with you about the lack of major Exodus hymns, though of course if you get into the spiritual and folk gospel genres there are some good ones like "Go down, Moses" and "When Israel camped in Sinai"... Your hymn here appears twice in my lists: "Be known to us in breaking bread" (which I also see set to St. Flavian, Dundee and Dunfermline) and "Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless", which I also have listed to Windsor. Both are generally ascribed to Montgomery.
And in my very partial, Baptist-biased list I see St. Agnes set to 15 texts:
Be known to us in breaking bread
Calm on the listening ear of night
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove
Father, I stretch my hands to thee
God of the nations near and far
Happy our/the home when God is there
I know not how that Bethlehem's Babe
Jesus, the very thought of thee
'Mid all the traffic of the ways
O God, to those who here profess
O God, we ask for strength to lead
Our Savior's infant cries were heard
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire
Shepherd of souls, refresh
Spirit of God, our comforter
Since a few of these at least are probably not on your list, the total for the tune must be (at least) closer to two dozen. It's one of the basic CM tunes that isn't so indissolubly linked to an extremely well-known text (as is, say, New Britain) as to preclude a hymnal editor's using for a text s/he wants to include without forcing congregations to sing an unfamiliar melody.
Incidentally, in the hymnal I grew up with (Christian Worship, 1941), "Shepherd of souls" has five stanzas, as at cyberhymnal.org.
Haruo
Sometimes it's better to leave a verse out than to change it. I think these three alone do a fine job of expressing the theme.
And two dozen is technically "more than a dozen." Remember that I'm not really doing a comprehensive dissertation here. I didn't actually have a list in front of me; I was speaking generally and in passing about a ubiquitous tune. ST.AGNES is probably overused, and when played badly, degenerates into a waltz, but those observations weren't initially part of my bloggy thoughts either.
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