Old Hymns New Music

Sacred Poetry

Some years ago I found myself perusing old hymnbooks grabbed up at library sales and such, they were old and needed new homes. As I page through I’m hunting for some spark in a line that makes me want to investigate further, a well turned phrase or a unique way of putting something, a particular spiritual perspective that is worth considering.

When I started doing this it was in conjunction with a venture into guitar playing as a way to branch out creatively from the visual arts, something new to play around with. So I got in the habit of putting simple chords to the old hymns that moved me in some way and then proceeded to sort of sing them to myself, I say sort of because I’m not a singer really.

Eventually this became my religious practice, something I could do that made me feel close to God. By associating regularly with this sacred poetry I was assimilating it, the great joy or reverence felt by these poets of the sacred was still alive in their words and could be revived in human hearts; it was passing from the spirit to the poet and then on to me.

There is a sincerity and compunction in hymns that I believe is somewhat unique to poetry in that God is involved. There is no fooling God, flowery words won’t sway Him if they serve no righteous cause, hymns are best from the heart moved by the spirit.

So now I have new music for around 200 old mostly obscure, never heard hymns and when the mood strikes me I look for more and they are easy to find. Each of these sacred poems has had a lesson for me personally; over time saying the words with music has brought much spiritual wisdom within my grasp, bushels full and running over.

In my wildest dreams I would wish that these hymns find a new audience long after these poets have passed away because these sacred poems really are a treasure trove of lasting spiritual knowledge. The depth of thought and noble aspirations expressed in spiritual terms in these old hymns is alive and vibrant and convincing when heard.

I found these hymns on line by putting in "hymn" and then the first few words, some of the sites work better than others at producing readable results but they are there. Also I will mention that I am using a capo at the third fret for pretty much everything as it suits my voice and so I don't have to reach way down the neck as I sit on the side of the bed which is my standard position.

Note: The songs are scanned as images because the Old English used in the hymns is not well recognized by optical character recognition (OCR) programs. If you would like to print the lyrics, right click and choose "save image as" to save to your computer. Alternatively, you can print the entire page by pressing CTRL p or using the print function in your browser.