Sir Robert Grant (1780–1838) wrote this paraphrase of Psalm 104 while carrying a public career few poets have matched: barrister, member of Parliament, member of the king’s privy council, and colonial governor of Bombay. The text first appeared in 1833 in Edward Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody, and after Grant died his brother gathered it with eleven other poems into a volume called Sacred Poems. The hymn is built on the early nineteenth century’s taste for the sublime, the awe stirred by mountains and thunderstorms, and yet it does not stay on that height. By the fourth stanza the imagery has come down to breezes, light, dew, and rain, the gentle evidence of “bountiful care.” That descent suits a day whose Gospel finds God’s power in a hand laid on a dead child. The tune HANOVER, named in 1722 for the royal house that took the throne in 1714, has no known composer; William Croft is credited in only three of some three hundred sources before 1800. --- *From the The Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity primer:* The man who wrote these words governed Bombay. Sir Robert Grant (1780–1838) was a barrister, a Tory member of Parliament, a member of the king’s privy council, and finally colonial governor of Bombay, and he was also a fine poet. This paraphrase of Psalm 104 first appeared in 1833 in Edward Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody, a collection of some seven hundred texts; the year after Grant died, his brother gathered this hymn with eleven others into a volume called Sacred Poems. The language belongs to the early nineteenth century’s fascination with the sublime, that sense of awe produced by mountains and thunderstorms, and yet the hymn does not stay there. By the fourth stanza the overwhelming imagery has softened into breezes, light, dew, and rain, the gentle signs of “bountiful care.” The tune, HANOVER, was named in 1722, presumably for King George I, whose house had taken the British throne in 1714. Its composer is unknown. William Croft long received the credit, though of roughly three hundred sources for the tune before 1800, only three name him, and the earliest of those appeared around 1750, more than forty years after the tune was printed.
Sung at Our Saviour
2025