O help us, Lord; each hour of need

Top Media Text Author Text Info Notes Tune Timeline Arrangements Page Scans Instances

O help us, Lord; each hour of need

Author: Henry Hart Milman (1827)
Published in 191 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, MusicXML
Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name

Choral
	Three Festive Hymn Settings

Instrumental
	All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name

Representative Text

1 O help us, Lord! each hour of need
thy heavenly succour give;
help us in thought and word and deed
each hour one earth we live.

2 O help us, when our spirits bleed
with contrite anguish sore
and when our hearts are cold and dead,
O help us, Lord, the more.

3 O help us, through the prayer of faith
more firmly to believe;
for still the more the servant hath,
the more shall he receive.

4 O help us, Jesu, from on high:
we know no help but thee.
O help us so to live and die
as thine in heaven to be.

Source: CPWI Hymnal #487

All representative texts • Compare texts ^ top

Author: Henry Hart Milman

Milman, Henry Hart, D.D., the youngest son of Sir Francis Milman (who received his Baronetage as an eminent Court physician), was born Feb. 10th, 1791, and educated at Dr. Burney's at Greenwich, and subsequently at Eton. His career at B. N. C. Oxford, was brilliant. He took a first class in classics, and carried off the Newdigate, Latin Verse, Latin Essay, and English Essay. His Newdigate on the Apollo Belvedere, 1812, is styled by Dean Stanley "the most perfect of Oxford prize poems." His literary career for several years promised to be poetical. His tragedy Fazio was played at Covent Garden, Miss O'Neill acting Bianca. Samor was written in the year of his appointment to St. Mary's, Reading (1817); The Fall of Jerusalem (1820); Belshazzar… Go to person page >

^ top

First Line:	O help us, Lord; each hour of need
Author:	Henry Hart Milman (1827)
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

^ top

Notes

O help us, Lord; each hour of need. H. H. Milman. [Lent.] First published in Bishop Heber's posthumous Hymns, &c, 1827, p. 52, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines and appointed for second Sunday in Lent, being based on the Gospel of that day. In his Selection of Psalms & Hymns, 1837, Milman omitted stanzas iv. and v., thus reducing it to 4 stanzas of 4 lines and each stanza beginning with the words, "Oh! help us." In this form it has come into extensive use in all English-speaking countries. In the Mitre Hymn Book, 1836, No. 190, it is partly rewritten by E. Osier as, "O help us, Lord! in all our need." This is repeated in Osier's Church and King, June 1, 1837, but it has failed to attract attention. Another arrangement, beginning with stanza ii., "O help us, when our spirits bleed," is sometimes found in modern hymnals.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

^ top