Not the grandeur of the mountains

Not the grandeur of the mountains. Michael Arnold Perry* (1942-1996). Two weeks of a family holiday on the Isle of Skye resulted in this hymn, written ‘one summer in the 1980s’. The author acknowledges his debt to the ‘mountains and clouds, lochs and mists – and especially the unforgettable sight of the clouds flowing over the strait of sea between Skye and the mainland’; and also to Timothy Dudley-Smith*, ‘who taught me so much…Timothy groups negatives – resolving them into a positive conclusion with satisfying effect.’ Among Scripture references, Perry cites Psalms 8, 36, 86, 111, 118, 119 and 136. Although he suggested Henry Smart*’s EVERTON as a tune (as in Church Family Worship, 1988),...