Hark, Hark, My Soul!

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Hark! hark, my soul! Angelic songs are swelling

Author: Frederick William Faber (1854)
Published in 594 hymnals

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Representative Text

1 Hark, hark, my soul! Angelic songs are swelling
O’er earth’s green fields and ocean’s wave-beat shore;
How sweet the truth those blessed strains are telling
Of that new life when sin shall be no more.

Refrain:
Angels of Jesus, Angels of light,
Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night.

2 Onward we go, for still we hear them singing:
“Come, weary souls, for Jesus bids you come;”
And through the dark, its echoes sweetly ringing,
The music of the gospel leads us home. [Refrain]

3 Far, far away, like bells at evening pealing,
The voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea,
And laden souls by thousands meekly stealing,
Kind Shepherd, turn their weary steps to Thee. [Refrain]

4 Angels, sing on, your faithful watches keeping;
Sing us sweet fragments of the songs above,
Till morning’s joy shall end the night of weeping,
And life’s long shadows break in cloudless love. [Refrain]

Source: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal #485

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Author: Frederick William Faber

Raised in the Church of England, Frederick W. Faber (b. Calverly, Yorkshire, England, 1814; d. Kensington, London, England, 1863) came from a Huguenot and strict Calvinistic family background. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and ordained in the Church of England in 1839. Influenced by the teaching of John Henry Newman, Faber followed Newman into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845 and served under Newman's supervision in the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Because he believed that Roman Catholics should sing hymns like those written by John Newton, Charles Wesley, and William Cowpe, Faber wrote 150 hymns himself. One of his best known, "Faith of Our Fathers," originally had these words in its third stanza: "Faith of Our Fathers! Mary'… Go to person page >

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First Line:	Hark! hark, my soul! Angelic songs are swelling
Title:	Hark, Hark, My Soul!
Author:	Frederick William Faber (1854)
Meter:	11.10.11.10 with refrain
Language:	English
Refrain First Line:	Angels of Jesus, Angels of light
Copyright:	Public Domain

English

10 shown out of 490

Welsh

Mawl a chân = praise and song : llyfr hymnau a thonau i Gymru ar Wasgar = hymnal for Welsh and English church worship / crynhoad pwyllgor Eglwys Gymraeg, Detroit, Michigan #268

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Notes

Hark, hark, my soul; Angelic songs are swelling. F. W. Faber. [Evening.] Published in his Oratory Hymns, 1854, and again in his Hymns, 1862, p. 385, in 7 stanzas of 4 lines, and entitled, "The Pilgrims of the Night." Five stanzas in an altered form were given in the Appendix to Hymns Ancient & Modern, 1868, No. 325. By this means the hymn was brought prominently before the public, and became exceedingly popular for a time. Its unreality, however, was excluded it from many of the best modern collections. In the Book of Prayer & Praise for use in Sir Jonah Mason's Orphanage, Erdington, 1883, No. 293, beginning, "Hark, hark, my soul, thy Father's voice is calling," is an imitation of this hymn. It is also in Allon's Children's Worship, 1878, No. 234.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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