OK, here we go -- the previously unrevealed Number Seven on the top ten list I submitted to the survey at Semicolon. Numbers 82 - 100 have been counted down thus far, and I feel fairly certain that this one will yet make the list. It's also on the list submitted by Leland (he ranked it at Number Six), so at least two of us voted for it. However, like many other hymns presented here, it won't be quite the way you remember it.
Crown thee with many crowns,
The Lamb upon the throne;
Hark how the heav'nly anthem drowns
All music but its own;
Our souls awake to sing
Sweet praises unto thee,
To hail thee, voices echoing
Through all eternity.
Crown thee the Child of God
Before the worlds began,
Who know'st the paths that we have trod,
According to God's plan;
Who ev'ry grief hath known
That wrings the human breast,
And takes and bears them for thine own
That all in thee may rest.
Crown thee the God of life
Who triumphed o'er the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife
For those thou cam'st to save;
Whose glories now we sing,
Who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring,
And lives that death may die.
Crown thee the God of years,
The Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres,
Ineffably sublime;
Glass'd in a sea of light,
Whose everlasting waves
Reflect thy throne -- the Infinite!
Who lives and loves and saves,.
Crown thee the God of peace,
Whose pow'r a sceptre sways
From pole to pole that wars may cease,
Absorbed in prayer and praise;
All hail, Redeemer, hail!
For thou dost live in me;
Thy praise shall never, never fail
Throughout eternity.
Crown thee the God of heav'n,
Enthroned in worlds above;
Crown thee the One to whom is giv'n
The wondrous name of Love;
Crown thee with many crowns
As thrones before thee fall;
We crown thee, Christ, with many crowns,
Who rulest over all.
Matthew Bridges, 1851 and Godfrey Thring, 1874; alt.
Tune: DIADEMATA (S.M.D.)
George Job Elvey, 1868
This is a composite version of this hymn that merges verses by two different writers. The original version in six verses was by Matthew Bridges, published in the second edition of his collection Hymns for the Heart (1851). Bridges was originally an Anglican, but converted to Roman Catholicism as a young man. It may be for that reason that Godfrey Thring was asked some years later to revise the hymn. He wrote a number of other verses, which first appeared in Church Hymns (1874) and Thring's own Church of England Hymnbook (1882). Since that time many different hymnals have used verses from both versions, always beginning with Bridges' first verse (Thring's opening verse began Crown him with crowns of gold), though there are still hymnals which use only Bridges' verses. Most modern hymnals (nearly all of which still include this hymn, as you'd probably guess) use only four or five verses, but we wanted at least six.
George Elvey composed DIADEMATA, certainly one reason for the continued popularity of this hymn, for the Bridges text in the 1868 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern.
