"Awake, Arise"

Christopher Smart, d. 1771

For our last Poem of the Week, as you may remember, I chose a remarkable psalm-like tribute to God by one of the oddest and sweetest of English poets, Christopher Smart. He was in St. Luke’s Hospital at the time, an asylum for people who couldn’t live on their own because their wits were, shall we say, unreliable. There he worked on his long poem, Jubilate Agno — “Rejoice in the Lamb” — from which I chose a wonderful excerpt, the famous section that begins “For I will consider my cat Jeoffry.” Smart rejoices in the variety and the splendor of the animal kingdom, associating dozens of figures from the Scriptures with one animal or another, as for instance: “Let Tobias bless Charity with his Dog, who is faithful, vigilant, and a friend in poverty.” Or, “Let Achsah rejoice with the Pigeon, who is an antidote to malignity and will carry a letter,” followed by this charmingly down-to-earth blessing: “For I will bless God for the Postmaster General and all conveyancers under his care, especially Allen and Shevlock.” And he gets around to plants also, as we did here yesterday, musing about old-fashioned names for flowers and herbs and tree-bark and suchlike. So he says this: “For TEA is an excellent plant and of blessed virtue. God give the Physicians more skill and honesty!” Hey, we can second that!

Here, then, is an Easter hymn from the same Kit Smart. If you want the Easter hymn most sharply focused on things that grow up out of the soil, you may look at one of last year’s entries, Now the Green Blade Riseth. In today’s hymn, Smart focuses on the surprise, even the shock, that the apostles themselves must have felt, and the evidence that overcame their doubt. The verses are simple and straightforward, yet in each one I find something unusual, something that perhaps only a poet would see or feel, and perhaps most of all a poet as sensitive to small and humble things as Christopher Smart was.

First of all, though, I should tell you that the hymn consists of several stanzas culled from a much longer Easter poem, vigorous and muscular and glad, with plenty of shrewd observations into the secrets of the human heart. Here’s one, looking at his own heart:

The Muse at length, no more perplexed
In search of human wit,
Shall kneel her down, and take her text
From lore of Holy Writ.

Meaning, “I’m no longer going to set myself up as a poet like everybody else, matching my wits with theirs. I can’t do it. I am going to kneel and heed the word of God.”

Or there are these stanzas, in which Smart is keen enough to understand that great gladness and great sorrow both tend to unsettle our wits, so that we hardly know what to believe. He’s referring to the incident in Acts, when Saint Peter was miraculously set free from his chains in prison, and he went at night to the house of Mary, mother of Saint Mark, but when he knocked on the door and called out his name, the servant girl Rhoda was so overjoyed that she forgot to open it for him, but went to tell the others — who at first didn’t believe her:

O GLADNESS! that suspend'st belief
For fear that rapture dreams;
Thou also hast the tears of grief,
And failst in wild extremes.

Though Peter make a clamorous din,
Will he thy doubts destroy?
Will little Rhoda let him in,
Incredulous with joy?

It’s after those stanzas that we find the second stanza that hymnal editors culled out for the hymn. In general, I will give the typical hymnal emendation only when the sense requires it; otherwise the words are Smart’s own.

The usual melody for the hymn is RICHMOND, composed by Thomas Haweis (pronounced as HAWES), to accompany the hymn written by that titan, Samuel Johnson, “City of God, How Broad and Far.” It’s a joyful English melody, named for the town where Haweis composed it. He too was an important figure in the evangelical revival underway in the English church at that time, a friend of George Whitefield, who offered him the living at a church in Philadelphia, but Haweis turned it down to stay in England. Haweis translated the New Testament, and wrote other works, one of which, The Communicant’s Spiritual Companion, I find to be full of the same kinds of incisive investigations into human motives that you will find in Johnson and the other poets of that age. It’s refreshing, as bracing air is refreshing. But here is the hymn!

1. Today we are sharing the Choir of York Minster, singing the tune Richmond, but set to “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” because we were not able to find an excellent choral arrangement of “Awake, Arise, Lift up Your Voice.” We hope you will perhaps sing along with the tune, using the beautiful lyrics of today’s hymn. — Debra

Awake -- arise -- lift up thy voice,
Which as a trumpet swell,
Rejoice in Christ -- again rejoice,
And on his praises dwell.

O with what gladness and surprise
The saints their Savior greet,
Nor will they trust their ears and eyes
But by his hands and feet:

Those hands of liberal love indeed
In infinite degree,
Those feet still frank to move and bleed
For millions and for me.

Herodians came to seal the stone
With Pilate's gracious leave,
Lest dead and friendless, and alone,
Should all their skill deceive.

O Dead, arise!  O Friendless, stand
By seraphim adored!
O Solitude, again command
Thy host from heaven restored.

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The last of the great crooners!Word & Song by Anthony Esolen is an online magazine devoted to reclaiming the good, the beautiful, and the true. We publish six essays each week, on words, classic hymns, poems, films, and popular songs, as well a weekly podcast for paid subscribers, Poetry Aloud or Anthony Esolen Speaks. Paid subscribers also receive audio-enhanced posts and access to our full archive and to comments and discussions. We value all of our subscribers, and we thank you for reading Word and Song!