Lead, O lead me into light.
Thou hast heard me; light is breaking—
Light I never saw before.
Now, my soul with joy awaking,
Gropes in fearful gloom no more:
O the bliss! my soul, declare it;
Say what God hath done for thee;
Tell it out, let others share it—
Christ's salvation, full and free.
One cannot help noticing the fondness of the Welsh for the 7-6, 8-7, and 8-7-4 metres. These are favorites since they lend themselves so naturally to the rhythms of their national music—though their newest hymnals by no means exclude exotic lyrics and melodies. Even “O mother dear, Jerusalem,” one of the echoes of Bernard of Cluny's great hymn, is cherished in their tongue (O, Frynian Caerselem) among the favorites of song. Old “Truro” by Dr. Burney appears among their tunes, Mason's “Ernan,” “Lowell” and “Shawmut,” I.B. Woodbury's “Nearer Home” (to Phebe Cary's hymn), and even George Hews' gently-flowing “Holley.” Most of these tunes retain their own hymns, but in Welsh translation. To find our Daniel Read's old “Windham” there 464 / 408 is no surprise. The minor mode—a song-instinct of the Welsh, if not of the whole Celtic family of nations, is their rural inheritance. It is in the wind of their mountains and the semitones of their streams; and their nature can make it a gladness as the Anglo-Saxon cannot. So far from being a gloomy people, their capacity for joy in spiritual life is phenomenal. In psalmody their emotions mount on wings, and they find ecstacy in solemn sounds.