Hymn 177, ‘Tis Sweet to Sing the Matchless Love.
‘Tis sweet to sing the matchless love,
Of Him who left his home above,
And came to earth- oh wondrous plan
To suffer bleed and die for man!
‘Tis good to meet each Sabbath day
And, in his own appointed way,
Partake the emblems of this death,
And thus renew our love and faith.
Faith doesn’t rhyme with death.
I can’t be the only person whose brain makes them say ‘feth’ instead of faith, just to make it rhyme like it’s supposed to. Can I?
You’re definitely not the only person. I know slant rhyme is a legitimate poetic technique, but wow, it drives me nuts! I usually sing “feth” just to make myself feel better, and do the same sort of thing with the mote/out and dim/beam rhymes in “Truth Reflects Upon Our Senses.” Likewise with any hymn that tries to rhyme “word” and “Lord.”
I have a problem where some hymns just plain have different words in my head, and it is almost impossible for me to sing correctly. Some of them the problem comes from having spent my whole life being forced to be the pianist. With less well known hymns, all I would know was the title before carefully focusing on the notes (I’m not all that good). So “Truth Reflects Upon our Senses” In my mind goes “Truth reflects upon our senses/like a truth reflecting thing/ reflecting truth upon our senses/ Reflect, reflecty thingy thing” Others were ruined for me by my irreverent folklorist mother, who taught us always to sing “Love at Home” as “Home alone.” Truly, there is beauty all around, when I’m home alone. Whining children ne’er annoy, tugging back on every toy, I can ignore both girl and boy, when I’m home alone. That sort of thing.
Does anyone else feel like we should completely replace all of our sacrament hymns just for the sake of relieving the incredible boredom of singing the same dirges over and over and over?
Mhana, I love your Truth Reflects song! Love it!
My primary kids grilled me about why this line of “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus” doesn’t rhyme. I couldn’t explain:
And how the Master, ready and kind, chided the billows and hushed the wind.
Have you tried saying “daith” to rhyme with faith?
A huge LOL here! Hymns can be so tedious especially when sung in a slow tempo – that’s irritating. DH taught our children different words to some of the hymns, and without fail there would be giggles while singing – and they still giggle even as adults. To this day my children can’t sing the Christmas song “We Three Kings of Orient are tried to smoke a rubber cigar, it was loaded and exploded into yonder star,” and now the grandkids sing it that way – it just comes natural. The hymns definitely should be changed up a bit – give them more of a beat – let’s get down and really praise the Lord!