• Duration: 5 minutes
  • Soloist(s): Soprano
  • Instrumentation: Piano
  • Published by: Hawes Music

 

This song takes the first two verses and last two verses from Samuel Crossman’s (1624-83) marvellous poem.  There is no reference to the well-known hymn tune; instead the listener is taken through a whole range of emotions as the piano supports the soprano voice with warm, sonorous textures.

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My song is love unknown,
My Saviour’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I,
That for my sake
My Lord should take
Frail flesh and die?

He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed-for Christ would know.
But O! my Friend,
My Friend indeed,
Who at my need
His life did spend!

In life no house, no home,
My Lord on earth might have;
In death, no friendly tomb
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heav’n was his home;
But mine the tomb
Wherein he lay.

Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King,
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend,
In whose sweet praise
I all my days
Could gladly spend.

Words: Samuel Crossman (1624–83)