348. God bless our native land
Siegfried A. Mahlmann, 1771-1826
Stanza 3, William E. Hickson, 1803-70
The first two stanzas are a free translation of Stanzas 1 and 3 of the following patriotic song for Saxony:
1.
Gott segne Sachsenland,
Wo fest die Treue stand
In Sturm und Nacht!
Ew’ge Gerechtigkeit,
Hoch überm Meer der Zeit,
Die jedem Sturm gebeut,
Schütz uns mit Macht!
2.
Blühe, du Rautenkranz
In schöner Tage Glanz
Freudig empor!
Heil, Friedrich August, dir!
Heil, guter König, dir!
Dich, Vater, preisen wir
Liebend im Chor!
3.
Was treue Herzen flehn
Steigt zu des Himmels Höh’n
Aus Nacht zum Licht.
Der unsre Liebe sah,
Der unsre Tränen sah,
Er ist uns huldreich nah,
Verlässt uns nicht.
A fourth stanza, identical with the first, follows.
It was written by the German song writer, Siegfried Augustus Mahlmann, and published in G. W. Fink’s Musikalischer Hausschatz, 1842. The hymn was first sung Nov. 13, 1815, in the presence of the King of Saxony. The hymn was also the inspiration for Samuel F. Smith’s, “My country ’tis of thee.”
The translation was made in 1834 by Charles T. Brooks, while a student at the Divinity School at Cambridge, Mass. It was revised by John Sullivan Dwight, 1813-93, to form our version. Dwight was a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and became a Unitarian minister in Northampton, Mass., but gave up the ministry to devote himself to literature and music. For thirty years he owned and edited Dwight’s Journal of Music.
The third stanza, raising the hymn above any narrow patriotism, was added by William E. Hickson, an English shoe manufacturer who retired from that business to pursue literary and philanthropic interests. Much interested in the musical culture of his people, he published various books on music and composed numerous musical works of merit. For a time he was editor of the Westminster Review.
MUSIC. DORT. For comments on the composer of this tune, Lowell Mason, see [Hymn 12].