as “among the loveliest of the lyrics expressing the heavenly homesickness.” Campion was a musician as well as a poet, which partly accounts for the singability of his hymns.
In 1623 George Withers issued a complete hymnbook for the Established Church. It was made up of Scriptural paraphrases and hymns for special occasions. The hymns are superior to previous attempts in structure and method, in their simple piety and practical purpose, and in their availability for actual congregational singing. But in the midst of admirable lines there were strange lapses in taste. The hymn whose first verse began so auspiciously,
“Come, oh, come, in pious lays
Sound we God Almighty’s praise;
Hither bring in one consent
Heart and voice and instrument,”
makes the singing congregation a conductor directing a vast chorus:
“From earth’s vast and hollow womb
Music’s deepest bass may come;
Seas and floods, from shore to shore,