• Duration: 4 minutes
  • Chorus: SATB unaccompanied
  • Published: Novello & Co

The ‘hymn to love’ in St Paul’s first letter to Corinth describes love by the qualities it expresses in relationships.  It is, says Paul, one of the three things that lasts forever.  The song ‘Perfect Love’ is not a paraphrase of the text, rather it is an interpretation of it.  The setting was commissioned by the Chamber Choir of Bradford Grammar School.

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Love is kind:
Gentle is love.
Love does not hate or envy;
Is always patient,
All things endures,
Love is pure truth
And goodness.

No thing I own;
Or skill I have
Without love’s touch is worthy.
To spend my life,
Give all I own,
Without love is nothing.

No hidden truth;
Truth beyond all sight,
Or faith that can move mountains,
Will free my soul,
Or heal the world;
Without true love are worthless.

Now like a child:
Child like I know,
And see love dim and distant;
The time will come
When face to face
I will see love
And know Him.

Words: adapted from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians by Andrew Hawes