Awake, my soul, awake, my tongue, My God demands the grateful song

Author: Anne Steele

Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporar… Go to person page >

Awake, my soul, awake, my tongue. Anne Steele. [Ps. ciii.] This version of Ps. ciii. extends to 16 stanzas of 4 lines. It appeared in her Poems, &c, 1760, vol. ii. p. 206, and new edition, 1780. The cento given in Martineau's Hymns, &c, 1840 and 1873; the American Baptist Service of Song, Boston, 1872, and others, is composed of stanzas i., ii., xi. and xvi. slightly altered. Original text in Sedgwick's reprint of Miss Steele's Hymns, 1863.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)