"Crown Him With Many Crowns"

Matthew Bridges, 1851; additional stanzas by Godfrey Thring

Our Hymn of the Week is one of the best-loved across the Christian churches, and yet I doubt very much whether more than a handful of people have ever sung its twelve verses.  That’s a lot to sing, and these days we’re sparing of our time and our good cheer when it comes to singing to God, though not so sparing when it comes to roaring for a favorite baseball or football team.  Priorities, priorities!

The odd thing about these twelve verses is that they have two authors.  The first six are by Matthew Bridges, a poet who followed John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church.  The second six are by the Anglican clergyman Godfrey Thring.  It’s some combination of verses by each author that typically appears in your ordinary hymnal, even when the editors have not mangled the poetry.  And these combinations don’t strike the ear as discordant, because Reverend Thring seems to have caught Mr. Bridges’ inspiration, so that we don’t feel that any one verse is out of place with the others.  Then the melody, called DIADEMATA, meaning “crowned,” was composed by Sir George Job Elvey specifically for these words, and a mighty melody it is, fit for a king.

As we move from stanza to stanza, the poets urge us to crown Christ as our king for one cause or in one respect after another.  Some of these touch upon what I might call the ironic sublime.  How can the “Babe of Bethlehem” be a mighty king, whose arm has won the trophies “which now his brow adorn”?  But it is so, just as it is the case that he is the very stem of the “mystic Rose,” the Virgin Mary, whose fruit he also is.  He is the “Lord of love,” and how can we tell for certain that it is so?  We look at the wounds in his hands and feet and side.  They remain upon the risen Lord, now marks of such unutterable beauty that the angels themselves must cast their eyes down, as dazzled by “mysteries so bright.”  We crown Him the “Son of God,” who dwelt in the bosom of the Father “before the worlds began,” for the Word was in the beginning, and was with God, and was God.  But we who “tread where he hath trod,” the paths of the human world with all their joys and sorrows, crown him also as “the Son of Man.”  Every trouble we know, he also knew, and every burden we bear, he also has borne, that we in him may know peace.  For he has said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I shall give you rest.”  What can be less like the ordinary run of human kings than that?  And yet what can be more kingly than to bear on your own shoulders the burdens of all your people?

The final stanza is simply brilliant, poetically and musically.  We have sung, many times already, the verb “crown,” and now we do so four times, and necessarily on different musical notes.  We still hear the melody of the first line of the first stanza, “Crown him with many crowns,” and now we sing that same line to the urgent and leading melody of the fifth line, the line that is the musical hinge of each stanza, and we dare to repeat it in the seventh line, whose thought is completed with the final line of the stanza and the poem.  We repeat it, though, with the bold addition that addresses all the kings of the world: “Crown him, ye kings, with many crowns / For he is king of all.”

Hymn of the Week: Crown Him with Many Crowns

Crown him with many crowns,
  The Lamb upon his throne;
Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns
  All music but its own:
Awake, my soul, and sing
  Of him who died for thee,
And hail him as thy matchless king
  Through all eternity.

Crown him the Virgin's Son!
  The God Incarnate born,
Whose arm those crimson trophies won
  Which now his brow adorn!
Fruit of the mystic Rose
  As of that Rose the Stem:
The Root, whence mercy ever flows,
  The Babe of Bethlehem!

Crown him the Lord of love!
  Behold his hands and side,
Rich wounds, yet visible above,
  In beauty glorified:
No angel in the sky
  Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye
  At mysteries so bright!

Crown him the Lord of peace!
  Whose power a scepter sways
From pole to pole that wars may cease,
  Absorbed in prayer and praise:
His reign shall know no end,
  And round his pierced feet
Fair flowers of paradise extend
  Their fragrance ever sweet.

Crown him the Lord of years!
  The Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres,
  Ineffably sublime!
Glassed in a sea of light,
  Where everlasting waves
Reflect his throne, the Infinite!
  Who lives, and loves, and saves.

Crown him the Lord of heaven!
  One with the Father known,
And the blest Spirit, through him given
  From yonder triune throne!
All hail! Redeemer, Hail!
  For Thou hast died for me;
Thy praise shall never, never fail
  Throughout eternity!

Crown him with crowns of gold,
  All nations great and small,
Crown him, ye martyred saints of old,
  The Lamb once slain for all;
The Lamb once slain for them
  Who bring their praises now,
As jewels for the diadem
  That girds his sacred brow.

Crown him the Son of God
  Before the worlds began,
And ye, who tread where He hath trod,
  Crown him the Son of Man;
Who every grief hath known
  That wrings the human breast,
And takes and bears them for His own,
  That all in him may rest.

Crown him the Lord of light,
  Who o'er a darkened world
In robes of glory infinite
  His fiery flag unfurled.
And bore it raised on high,
  In heaven, in earth, beneath,
To all the sign of victory
  O'er Satan, sin, and death.

Crown him the Lord of life
  Who triumphed o'er the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife
  For those he came to save;
His glories now we sing
  Who died, and rose on high.
Who died, eternal life to bring
  And lives that death may die.

Crown him of lords the Lord,
  Who over all doth reign
Who once on earth, the incarnate Word,
  For ransomed sinners slain,
Now lives in realms of light,
  Where saints with angels sing
Their songs before him day and night,
  Their God, Redeemer, king.

Crown him the Lord of heaven,
  Enthroned in worlds above;
Crown him the king, to whom is given
  The wondrous name of Love,
Crown him with many crowns,
  As thrones before him fall.
Crown him, ye kings, with many crowns,
  For He is King of all.

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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 hymn, poems, films, and popular songs, as well a weekly podcast, alternately Poetry Aloud or Anthony Esolen Speaks. To support this project, please join us as a free or paid subscriber. Learn more about our subscription tiers by clicking the button below.