New Year's Day

Representative Text

1 Once more the constant sun,
Revolving round his sphere,
His steady course has run,
And brings another year.
He rises, sets, but goes not back,
Nor ever quits his destined track.

2 What now should be our task?
Or rather, what our prayer?
What good thing shall we ask,
To prosper this new year?
With one accord our hearts we’d lift,
And ask our Lord some new year’s gift.

3 No trifling gift or small,
Should friends of Christ desire.
Rich Lord, bestow on all
Pure gold, well tried by fire.
Faith that stands fast when devils roar,
And love that lasts for evermore.

Source: A Selection of Hymns for Public Worship. In four parts (10th ed.) (Gadsby's Hymns) #777

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Author: J. Hart

Hart, Joseph, was born in London in 1712. His early life is involved in obscurity. His education was fairly good; and from the testimony of his brother-in-law, and successor in the ministry in Jewin Street, the Rev. John Hughes, "his civil calling was" for some time "that of a teacher of the learned languages." His early life, according to his own Experience which he prefaced to his Hymns, was a curious mixture of loose conduct, serious conviction of sin, and endeavours after amendment of life, and not until Whitsuntide, 1757, did he realize a permanent change, which was brought about mainly through his attending divine service at the Moravian Chapel, in Fetter Lane, London, and hearing a sermon on Rev. iii. 10. During the next two years ma… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Once more the constant sun
Title:	New Year's Day
Author:	J. Hart
Meter:	6.6.6.6.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Tune

DARWALL

Composed by John Darwall (b. Haughton, Staffordshire, England, 1731; d. Walsall, Staffordshire, England, 1789), DARWALL'S 148TH was first published as a setting for Psalm 148 in Aaron William's New Universal Psalmodist (1770) with only soprano and bass parts. The harmonization dates from the ninete…

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Arrangements

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