In "Blessed Assurance" (http://www.hymnary.org/text/blessed_assurance_jesus_is_mine), it says it uses the meter 9.9.10.9 with refrain. But isn't it 9.10.9.9 with refrain?
At our Fanny Crosby hymn sing last month, we sang it (first verse only, in Swahili and English) to the Madagascar folk tune it's set to in the Kenyan Baptist hymnal Nyimbo za Imani Yetu, which is 9.9.9.9. This worked well for the Swahili version but not so well for the English, which required textual adjustment in the second line. We sang
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
What a foretaste of glory divine.
with "foretaste" given ultimate stress (ASSURANCE gives "foretaste" its normal penultimate stress); this was not a major problem, as that degree of stress displacement is pretty common in singing, sacred and popular alike. But if one wished there are other possible emendations to try, e.g. "Oh, what a glimpse of".
Later in the program, we sang all three stanzas to ASSURANCE, and earlier in the program we had already sung "Now in this moment" (an RLDS text) to ASSURANCE.
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Comments
Blessed assurance meter
Yes, you are right. 9.10.9.9. with refrain is the correct meter. I've corrected the mistake.
Alternative meter
At our Fanny Crosby hymn sing last month, we sang it (first verse only, in Swahili and English) to the Madagascar folk tune it's set to in the Kenyan Baptist hymnal Nyimbo za Imani Yetu, which is 9.9.9.9. This worked well for the Swahili version but not so well for the English, which required textual adjustment in the second line. We sang
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
What a foretaste of glory divine.
with "foretaste" given ultimate stress (ASSURANCE gives "foretaste" its normal penultimate stress); this was not a major problem, as that degree of stress displacement is pretty common in singing, sacred and popular alike. But if one wished there are other possible emendations to try, e.g. "Oh, what a glimpse of".
Later in the program, we sang all three stanzas to ASSURANCE, and earlier in the program we had already sung "Now in this moment" (an RLDS text) to ASSURANCE.
Haruo