An Evening Song

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Dread [Blest] Sovereign! let my evening song

Author: Isaac Watts
Published in 190 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, Noteworthy Composer
Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	I'll Praise My Maker - Three Hymn Settin…

Representative Text

1 [Thou Sovereign, let my evening song
Like holy incense rise;
Assist the offerings of my tongue
To reach the lofty skies.

2 Through all the dangers of the day
Thy hand was still my guard,
And still to drive my wants away
Thy mercy stood prepared.]

3 Perpetual blessings from above
Encompass me around,
But O how few returns of love
Hath my Creator found!

4 What have I done for him that died
To save my wretched soul?
How are my follies multiplied,
Fast as the minutes roll.

5 Lord, with this guilty heart of mine,
To thy dear cross I flee,
And to thy grace my soul resign,
To be renewed by thee.

6 Sprinkled afresh with pardoning blood,
I lay me down to rest,
As in the embraces of my God,
Or on my Savior's breast.

The Christian's duty, exhibited in a series of hymns, 1791

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Author: Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts was the son of a schoolmaster, and was born in Southampton, July 17, 1674. He is said to have shown remarkable precocity in childhood, beginning the study of Latin, in his fourth year, and writing respectable verses at the age of seven. At the age of sixteen, he went to London to study in the Academy of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, an Independent minister. In 1698, he became assistant minister of the Independent Church, Berry St., London. In 1702, he became pastor. In 1712, he accepted an invitation to visit Sir Thomas Abney, at his residence of Abney Park, and at Sir Thomas' pressing request, made it his home for the remainder of his life. It was a residence most favourable for his health, and for the prosecution of his literary… Go to person page >

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First Line:	Dread [Blest] Sovereign! let my evening song
Title:	An Evening Song
Author:	Isaac Watts
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Psalm 141:2
(hymns)

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Notes

Dread Sovereign, let my evening song. I. Watts. [Evening.] Appeared in the first edition of his Hymns & Sacred Songs, 1707, Bk. ii., No. 7, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed, "An Evening Song." The opening stanza, when compared with J. Mason's "Song of Praise for the Evening" (Songs of Praise, 1683, No. xi.), is evidently suggested by Mason's stanza i. The two are:—
Watts, 1109.
"Dread Sovereign, let my evening song
Like holy incense rise:
Assist the offerings of my tongue
To reach the lofty skies."

Mason, 1683.
"Now from the altar of my heart
Let incense flames arise;
Assist me, Lord, to offer up
Mine evening sacrifice."

The hymn in its original form is in common use both in Great Britain and America. There are also altered texts in common use, as (1) "Blest Saviour, let our evening song"; this is in Common Praise , 1879; and (2) "0 Holy Father, let my song," in Baptist Psalms & Hymns, 1858-80, &c.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Tune

MARTYRDOM (Wilson)

MARTYRDOM was originally an eighteenth-century Scottish folk melody used for the ballad "Helen of Kirkconnel." Hugh Wilson (b. Fenwick, Ayrshire, Scotland, c. 1766; d. Duntocher, Scotland, 1824) adapted MARTYRDOM into a hymn tune in duple meter around 1800. A triple-meter version of the tune was fir…

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SERENITY (Wallace)

EVAN (Havergal)

This tune [EVAN], "the popularity of which in Scotland, America, and the Colonies is quite unprecedented" (Tonic Sol Fa Reporter, May 15, 1870), consists of the 1st, 2nd, 7th, and 8th strains of "O Thou dread Power" a sacred song by the Rev. W.H. Havergal, the melody being unaltered. EVAN II is the…

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