Hark, hark! My Soul! – A Hymn for the Proper time (Original Hymn-tune)

Описание: The day had just begun. It was a Saturday morning, and I looked out the window for the first rays of the sun pouring in. “As usual,” I said, drunk upon the perpetuity of routine. I rose from my bed and prayed. Afterwards, looking once more through the window, I beheld the calm field, the distant forest, and the dew upon the grass. At that moment, I saw what had given God reason, after creating all things, to perceive that “behold, it was very good.”

This little spark of peace lifted me from a monotonous routine into a moment of deeper reflection, which finally stirred within me the will to write a new hymn for God. I turned to my sources, seeking a fitting poem that could become the soul of my tune. At last, I found Hark, hark! My soul! by Frederick W. Faber, written in 1854. How great a poet Faber was! This poem was exactly what I had been seeking for my tune.

The Rev. Frederick William Faber was born on June 28, 1814, in the village of Calverley, in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England. He attended Harrow and Shrewsbury, followed by enrollment in 1832 at Balliol College, University of Oxford. In 1834, he obtained a scholarship at University College, from which he graduated in 1836 with second-class honours in Literæ Humaniores. In the same year, he won the Newdigate Prize for his poem The Knights of St John, which elicited special praise from John Keble. Among his college friends were Arthur Penrhyn Stanley and Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne. After graduation, he was elected a fellow of the college.

He was first ordained in the Anglican Church as a deacon in 1837, then as a priest in 1839, and later entered the Roman Catholic Church, being ordained priest in 1847. Beyond his clerical vocation, he was devoted to hymn-writing and poetry, and counted among his friends many poets, including William Wordsworth.