Keep Me Calm

Top Media Text Author Text Info Notes Tune Timeline Arrangements Page Scans Instances

Calm me, my God, and keep me calm

Author: Horatius Bonar (1857)
Published in 144 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, MusicXML
Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	The Fruit of the Spirit

Representative Text

1 Calm me, my God, and keep me calm,
While these hot breezes blow;
Be like the night-dew's cooling balm
Upon earth's fevered brow.

2 Calm me, my God, and keep me calm,
Soft resting on Thy breast;
Soothe me with holy hymn and psalm,
And bid my spirit rest.

3 Calm me, my God, and keep me calm,
Let Thine outstretchèd wing
Be like the shade of Elim's palm
Beside her desert-spring.

4 Yes, keep me calm, though loud and rude
The sounds my ear that greet,
Calm in the closet's solitude,
Calm in the bustling street;

5 Calm in the hour of buoyant health,
Calm in the hour of pain;
Calm in my poverty or wealth,
Calm in my loss or gain;

6 Calm in the sufferance of wrong,
Like Him who bore my shame,
Calm 'mid the threatening, taunting throng,
Who hate Thy holy Name;

7 Calm as the ray of sun or star
Which storms assail in vain;
Moving unruffled through earth's war,
The eternal calm to gain.

Amen.

The Hymnal: Published by the authority of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., 1895

All representative texts • Compare texts ^ top

Author: Horatius Bonar

Horatius Bonar was born at Edinburgh, in 1808. His education was obtained at the High School, and the University of his native city. He was ordained to the ministry, in 1837, and since then has been pastor at Kelso. In 1843, he joined the Free Church of Scotland. His reputation as a religious writer was first gained on the publication of the "Kelso Tracts," of which he was the author. He has also written many other prose works, some of which have had a very large circulation. Nor is he less favorably known as a religious poet and hymn-writer. The three series of "Hymns of Faith and Hope," have passed through several editions. --Annotations of the Hymnal, Charles Hutchins, M.A. 1872… Go to person page >

^ top

First Line:	Calm me, my God, and keep me calm
Title:	Keep Me Calm
Author:	Horatius Bonar (1857)
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

^ top

Notes

Calm me, my God, and keep me calm. H. Bonar. [Peace.] Appeared in his Hymns of Faith and Hope, 1st series, 1857, in 8 stanzas of 4 lines, and entitled, “The Inner Calm." Its use in Great Britain is fair, but in America it ranks in popularity with the finest of Dr. Bonar's hymns. In one or two hymnals the opening line is altered to "Calm me, blest Spirit, keep me calm," as in Nicholson's Appendix Hymnal, 1866, but this is not popular

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

^ top

Tune

LAMBETH (Schulthes)

Credited to Wilhelm Schulthes, 1871, in The Hymnal (1916). Reviews of his works in The Musical Times in 1871 include an "Ave Maria" for organ/piano and "O Salutaris" for soprano and choir. These pieces appear to be exceptionally rare and are not readily available for study. —Chris Fenner

Go to tune page >

All tunes published with 'Keep Me Calm'^ top