Guter Hirte, willst du nicht. J. Scheffler. [The Good Shepherd.] Appeared as No. 70 in Book iii. of his Heilige Seelenlust, Breslau, 1657, p. 218 (Werke, 1862, i. p. 128), in 5 stanzas of 6 lines, entitled, "She [the Soul] beseeches Him, that He, as a Good Shepherd, would bring her, His lamb, to His fold." Included in Freylinghausen's Gesang-Buch, 1705, No. 702, and recently in the Berlin Geistliche Lieder, cd. 1863. It is a hymn full of tenderness and pathos, and has been well translated as:—
1. Wilt Thou not, my Shepherd true, a full and very good translation in Miss Cox's Sacred Hymns from German, 1841, p. 101. Thence with stanza iii., lines 3,4, altered in the 1857 edition of Mercer's Church Psalter & Hymn Book, in Kennedy, 1863, &c. Slightly altered by Miss Cox for Lyra Eucharistica, 1863, p. 191, and her Hymns from German, 1864, p. 169; and thence unaltered in the People's Hymnal, 1867.
2. Loving Shepherd, kind and true, a full and good translation in the 1st Ser., 1855, of Miss Winkworth's Lyra Germanica p. 98, repeated, slightly altered, in the Hymnal for St. John's, Aberdeen, 1865-70. Considerably altered for metrical reasons in her Chorale Book for England, 1863, No. 152.
3. While on earth, dear Lord, I roam, a good but free translation in Miss Dunn's Hymns from German, 1857, p. 109, and thence, omitting stanzas iii., iv., as No. 244, in Dr. Pagenstecher's Collection, 1864.
4. Loving Shepherd! Guardian true, included in Holy Song, 1869, is a translation of stanzas i., iii.—v., in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, with the refrain, "Tender Shepherd! Thine I am, Keep till death Thy little lamb."
Another translation is, "O Faithful Shepherd! now behold," by Lady Eleanor Fortescue, 1843 (1847, p. 43). [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
