I had an itch to practice "Jerusalem" tonight, and I would have thought there was a conventional setting of it (i.e., traditional harmonies and William Blake's words) somewhere in the house. But no: the version in Singing the Living Tradition is weird. It tries to match a modern setting of Parry's tune with Don Marquis's "Have I Not Known" - which is an interesting poem, but its cadences do not coincide with "Jerusalem"'s:

Have I not known the sky and sea
Put on a look as hushed and stilled
As if some ancient prophecy drew close upon to be fulfilled?
Like mist the houses shrink and swell,
Like blood the highways throb and beat,
The sapless stones beneath my feet
Turn foliate with miracle.
And life and death but one thing are--
And I have seen this wingless world cursed with impermanence
and whirled like dust across the summer swirled,
And I have dealt with Presences behind the walls of Time and Place
And I have seen this world starbright,
Shining wonderful in space.

So I thought I would have more luck with my copy of the 1982 Episcopal hymnal... but its version of "Jerusalem" is a unison setting of Carl P. Daw's "O day of peace that dimly shines." Which is another pair of nice verses -- and now that I think about it, far more appropriate to an American church than Blake's Anglocentric ones -- but still. So much for my appetite for burning bows and chariots of fire.

(I also peeked at YouTube, where searching with "Jerusalem Blake" brought up not only traditional renditions but also a funky roots version and a soulful chick singing along to a cricket montage. None of which I've worked up the nerve to listen to all the way through yet.)

The other hymn I spent some time geeking over tonight was "Abide with Me." I've started incorporating it into my evening routine, and as long as I had the Anglican hymnal out, I figured I'd see what the damage really was the differences were. It's not too bad, actually: the UU version prints versions 1, 2, and 7, and the only word change is a "Lord" to "still" in verse 1. I can live with that. The 1982 Hymnal lists verses 1, 6, 7, and 8. The harmonies are identical but the UU hymnal uses a larger font for both the music and the verses.

I sometimes think of as the patron hymn of misanthropes. It is rather comforting having it to play when one happens to be too out of spirit to join in choruses of "We are one":

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see:
O thou who changest not, abide with me!