Hymn of the Week: March 7
by the Rev. Brooke Myers
Lent 3 - March 7
Hymn 140:
“Wilt Thou Forgive That Sin”
While not associated with this Sunday’s lectionary, this hymn powerfully expresses the season’s mood and tone. Its author and composer lived hundreds of years ago, yet it wasn’t until 1982 that this heartfelt song came to be included in our hymnal.
The Anglican priest and poet John Donne (1573-1631) wrote the achingly personal text as a stand-alone poem, but later commissioned music for it.Characteristic of Donne’s fondness for wordplay, he puns on his and his wife’s names (she was Anne More) and pairs opposites as in run/still. The first stanza is concerned with original sin and chronic sinfulness, the second with leading others into sin and sins recently repented but long-practiced, and the third with the poet’s fear of death and his hope for salvation. It is odd that Donne considers his fear a sin; it is intriguing that he likens living life to spinning thread.
If this piece sounds more like a song than a hymn, it is because its composer wrote lute songs. John Hilton (1599-1657) also served as organist at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, one of London’s premier parishes. According to Donne’s biographer Izaak Walton, the poet asked Hilton to write “a most grave and solemn tune” for his text. The plaintive, minor key result is well suited to the confessional text. Ending on a more upbeat note, the final word of the third stanza is sung to a major chord. The name of the tune is, appropriately, Donne.
In addition to the setting in the Hymnal 1982, the text is reproduced here without the music to facilitate appreciation of the text as a poem.
A Hymn to God the Father
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
which my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
and do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
for I have more.
Wilt thou forgive that sin by which I won
others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
a year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
for I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I’ve spun
my last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
and, having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more.
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