So Melancholy Why, Poor Heart?

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So melancholy why, poor heart

Tune: KEDRON (German)
Published in 1 hymnal

Printable scores: PDF, Noteworthy Composer
Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1 So melancholy why, poor heart,
So heavy and so full of smart,
And still for earthly things?
Resign thee to the Lord thy God,
Who Heaven and the earth hath made.

2 Elijah, speak: Who gave thee bread,
When dearth and drought had overspread
Thy land for several years?
Did not the widow’s cruse supply
Her own and thy necessity?

3 When near the jun’per thou didst stay
God sent His messenger away
To furnish thee with food,
Which that uncommon vigor gave,
That thou couldst reach Mount Horeb’s cave.

4 Good Daniel: In the lion’s den
God ne’er forgot, tho’ left by men,
But sent His angel down
To seize the prophet’s harvest-mess
For His belovèd in distress.

5 Tho’ Joseph, into Egypt sold,
By Potiphar was laid in hold
For keeping God’s command:
God raised him up to great renown,
To save that nation and his own.

6 Did not the furnace lose its pow’r
When sev’n times heated, to devour
The three men in the flame?
God sent His angel to their aid,
And made the tyrant sore afraid.

7 Thy plenty, Lord, is still as great,
As ’twas in times of ancient date;
In Thee is all my trust,
Enrich my soul with faith and love,
Then have I everywhere enough.

Source: The Cyber Hymnal #13761

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	So melancholy why, poor heart
Title:	So Melancholy Why, Poor Heart?
Source:	Probably 16th Century Polish or German; English tr.: A Collection of Hymns for the Children of God of All Ages (Part I) (London: 1754
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

Wackernagel, iv. pp. 128–130, gives three forms of the text of this anonymous hymn: No. 190 as the first of Zwey schöne newe geistliche Lieder, Nürnberg, N.D., [no date] c. 1560; No. 191, from an Enchiridion printed at Hamburg, 1565; No. 192, from the Psalmen und Leder, Lübeck, 1567.

In his Bibliographie, 1855, p. 279, he had cited it as in Neun schöne geistliche Lieder, Nürnberg, N.D., which he then dated 1565—probably too early.

According to Koch, v., 563, it had already appeared as Czemu sic trosczyss, in a Polish hymn-book ed. by Pastor Seklucyan, and pub. at Königsberg [now Kaliningrad, Russia] in 1559.

This hymn has often been ascribed to Hans Sachs. So Ambrosius Hannemann in his Prodromus Hymnologiæ, Wittenberg, 1633, Second 10, No. 8 entitles it Consolation against Tearfulness. Hans Sachs; and in Jeremias Weber’s G.B. [Gesangbuch], 1638, p. 578, it is entitled On Famine. A good family hymn. Written for the use of heads of households and their families by Hans Sachs, of Nürnberg, the well-known German poet.

The hymn has not however been traced in any of the works of Sachs, and the ascription to him seems to be without foundation.

Julian, p. 1234

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