Praise, my soul, the King of heaven
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven. Henry Francis Lyte* (1793-1847).
First published in Lyte’s The Spirit of the Psalms (1834), as a free paraphrase of Psalm 103. It had five stanzas, with stanza 4 (corresponding to verses 15-17 of the Psalm) bracketed for omission. Many hymn books (though not RS) have accordingly left out this stanza:
Frail as summer’s flower we flourish;
Blows the wind and it is gone;
But, while mortals rise and perish,
God endures unchanging on:
Praise him! Praise him!
Praise the high eternal One.
There have been many alterations to Lyte’s text. The most persistent have been A&M’s substitution of ‘Alleluia! Alleluia!’ for ‘Praise him! Praise him!’ in each stanza, and the change in stanza 5 line 1 in Methodist books since 1904 from ‘Angels, help us to adore him’ to ‘Angels in the height, adore him’ (perhaps Methodist belief was suspicious of direct angelic help). More recently changes have been made to avoid ‘fathers’ in verse 2 line 2 (‘to his people’ in RS; ‘to our forebears’ in the Unitarian Hymns for Living, 1985).
With or without these and other minor changes, the hymn is a spectacular piece of praise rhetoric. It compresses a great deal into its five stanzas, and combines a powerful statement of God’s grandeur as the king of heaven with a recognition of his tenderness to frail humanity. It is also suitable for many different occasions, and can be sung by people of all denominations. Throughout the English-speaking world it is hard to find a major hymnbook that does not include it.
The most frequently used tune for this hymn is by John Goss*. Its name, PRAISE MY SOUL, suggests that it was written for these words. It appeared in Robert Brown-Borthwick*’s Supplemental Hymn and Tune Book (Third Edition, 1869). It exists in three forms: in Brown-Borthwick’s book it is in D major for voices in unison and in E major for SATB; a further version in F sharp minor for the original fourth stanza was written in November 1868 (printed in the Canadian Hymn Book, 1971). The hymn is also sung to Henry Smart*’s REGENT SQUARE, although that tune was written for Horatius Bonar*’s ‘Glory be to God the Father’*.
JRW
Cite this article
MLA style (see MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 3rd Ed.)
. "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven."
The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press. Web. 13 Feb. 2025.<
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/p/praise,-my-soul,-the-king-of-heaven>.
Chicago style (see The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Ed.)
. "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven."
The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press, accessed February 13, 2025,
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/p/praise,-my-soul,-the-king-of-heaven.