The Poetry of Hymns

Through the centuries in the solace of a church we hear music. These soaring vaulted often beautiful pieces of architecture have borne witness to hymns that change our emotions and fortify our spirit through life, death and celebrations and memorials of every type in between. Whether you are of a Christian faith or not, it is difficult to deny that these hymns create something stirring something magical which shouldn't be surprising when you hear the original poems. They speak with clarity and purpose, uplifting the heart and the soul, rejoicing God's work and man's pledge to do better in His eyes. But Hymns also have a wider duty to perform as there are many facets, themes and help on how to live lives as ourselves and appreciate each other as well as nature. In listening each of us can be swayed and persuaded on a number of levels.However many poets have called their work 'a Hymn' and have explored its theme and its definition, in different ways. They can be more irreverent and suggest that hymns can come not from churches but other places - even watermelon pavilions.One of the purposes of poems, of verse, of words, is to bring a subject into our view, imbue it with a little understanding and perhaps help us to confirm our opinions or hear in a way we might not have originally thought of it. Seeing and hearing through others can be a way to find more complex ripples of knowledge or to challenge what we hold and adjust that thinking.In this volume we bring you a wide range of Hymns from the religious and the devotional to the humane and the wonderful.1 - The Poetry of Hymns - An Introduction 2 - Psalm 23 The Lord is My Shepherd3 - Amazing Grace by John Newton4 - Wondrous Sight For Men and Angels by Ann Griffiths5 - Angels From the Realms of Glory by James Montgomery6 - And Can It Be, That I Should Gain by Charles Wesley7 - Nearer, My God to Thee by Sarah Flower Adams8 - A Hymn to God the Father by John Donne9 - A Hymn to God The Father by Ben Jonson10 - A Hymn for Morning by Thomas Parnell11 - Hymn Written Sunday February the 11th, 1798 by Robert Anderson12 - An Hymn to the Morning by Phyllis Wheatley13 - Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! by Reginald Heber14 - A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow15 - The Hymn by Anne Kingsmill-Finch16 - An Hymn to the Evening by Phyllis Wheatley17 - A Hymn on the Seasons (An Extract) by James Thomson18 - A Spring Carol by Christina Rossetti19 - A Carol of Harvest For 1867 by Walt Whitman20 - We Plough the Fields and Scatter by Mattias Claudius21 - Hymn to the Belly by Ben Jonson22 - Sacrament Hymn by Dante Gabriel Rossetti23 - Homer's Hymn To the Earth, Mother of All by Percy Bysshe Shelley24 - Hymn to Aphrodite by Sappho25 - A Hymn To the Muses by Robert Herrick26 - Ain't That Hard. Transcribed by Christine Rutledge of the Carolina Singers 187327 - Oh God! Oh Let Me Call Thee Thine by Anne Bronte28 - Hymn On Solitude by James Thomson29 - Hymn From A Watermelon Pavilion by Wallace Stevens30 - Nature's Hymn to the Deity by John Clare31 - Hymn For St John's Eve The 29th June by John Henry Dryden32 - Jerusalem by William Blake33 - Hymn For the Dedication of Memorial Hall at Cambridge June 23rd 1874 by Oliver Wendell Holmes34 - Hymn for a Little Child by Matilda Betham Edwards35 - De Linin' ub de Hymns by Daniel Webster Davis36 - The Hymn of the Wiltshire Laborers by Charles Dickens37 - The Gospel Train. Transcribed by Christine Rutledge of the Carolina Singers 187338 - Hymn For the First of August by John Pierpont39 - Hymn XLI by William Williams Pantycelyn40 - There's An Open Door by Ann Griffiths41 - Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson42 - Hymn After Battle by Arthur St John Adcock43 - Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe44 - Onward Christian Soldiers by Sabine Baring-Gould45 - Hymn by Fenton Johnson46 - Boston Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson47 - Father Mapple's Hymn by Herman Melville48 - The Sailor's Hymn by William Whiting49 - A Hymn of the Sea by William Cullen Bryant50 - Hymn to The North Star by William Cullen Bryant51 - In the Bleak Mid-Winter by Christina Georgina Rossetti52 - Winter Evening Hymn To My Fire by James Russell Lowell53 - A Christmas Carol by Samual Taylor Coleridge54 - Carol by Ben Jonson55 - A Christmas Carol by Aubrey De Vere56 - A Carol. I by Mildmay Fane, Earl of Westmorland57 - Christmas Carol by Sara Teasdale58 - A Christmas Carol by G K Chesterton59 - The Prettiest Thing That Ever I Did. Transcribed by Christine Rutledge of the Carolina Singers 187360 - A Funeral Hymn by David Mallet