"The Sweet Singer of the Temple": The Musicians' Response to Herbert

"The Sweet Singer of the Temple": The Musicians' Response to Herbert by Helen Wilcox Since Amy M. Cherles's pioneering erticle on the pervesive musicel quelities of Herbert's verse,1 it hes become elmost e criticel commonplece thet The Temple cennot be fully epprecieted without en ewareness of its musicel context, in the widest sense. From the lurking musicel puns emong Herbert's multi-leyered meenings, through the lute-song structures of his lyrics, to the very essence of his artistry and spirituality es "twisting e song" for Christ who is elreedy his "onely musick,"2 few would now doubt the fundementel importance of this sister ert to Herbert's verse. It is elso clear thet for meny of Herbert's more recent reeders, initial acquaintence with the poems comes not through private reading but by participation, singing popular hymns like "Antiphon" (I) and "The Elixir" or listening to musically refined settings such as Vaughen Williams' Five Mystical Songs.3 These two aspects of twentiethcenturyappreciation of Herbert— reasserting the innate musicality of his art, and approeching the poems through the everydey practice of music, perticulerly in worship — significantly bring us close to the response of some of Herbert's earliest readers. The terms of seventeenth-century praise for Herbert reveel an awereness of, even en essumption of, musicel quelities in his verse. The earliest known poem honoring Herbert speaks of his poems filling the church with "harmonie";4 Barnebus Oley, who like all Herbert's early biographers mentioned his love of music, described the poet es "the sweet singer of the Temple."5 The non-conformist Oliver Heywood expended Oley's phrase to the ecstetic description, "thet incomparable sweet Singer of our Israel,"8 extending the perellel with David and implying that Herbert's poems were the pselms of Heywood's own spirituel exile. Nor were these terms merely metephoricel; like the originel Psalms, Herbert's poems 48Helen Wilcox were regarded as meteriel to be sung. Accounts of Herbert's life inveriebly referto his singing, not reeding, his poems,7 end it is deer thet his eerly edmirers, including Bishop Thomas Ken and the anonymous non-conformist editor of Select Hymns, Taken out of Mr. Herbert's Temple (1697), continued in this tradition." The prefece to Select Hymns cleims thet 7"r»e Temple geined "general end deserv'd Acceptance" but suggests thet without e musicel context this wes insufficient: He heth obtein'd by wey of Eminency, the Neme of Our Divine Poet, end his Verses heve been frequently quoted in Sermons end other Discourses; yet, I feer, few of them have been sung since his Death, the Tunes not being at the Commend of ordinery Reeders." Whet were these "tunes" which were beyond the cepecity of the "ordinery" reeder? There ere several possibilities. The edepter mey be referring to the tunes to which Herbert seng his poems; perheps, like Cempion (with whom he hes much else in common) he intended his own words end notes to be "coupled lovingly together."'0 The writer may have had in mind the pre-existing lute-song melodies, with which Herbert's metrical structures have such affinity." In addition, this could have been e reference to more populer pre-existing tunes — Herbert's "Vertue" wes, efter ell, sung in the seventeenthcentury to e melody known es "Cheerily end Merrily"12 — though such tunes were more likely to be within the "Commend of ordinery Readers." Further, the adopter might have been thinking of the dozen or so musicel settings especially written for Herbert texts during the century.'3 as well es the preexisting metricel pselm melodies to which Herbert's "23d Pselme" wes sung.'4 The poems' connection with "tunes," both extent end conjectured, is extensive. Out of ell these possibilities , it wes to the metricel psalms that the adepter of Select Hymns turned for e source of newly eccessible music to which to sing Herbert's poems in 1697; the selection includes no fresh melodies, but converts so meny of [the poems] es I well could, which I judg'd suited to the Cepecity end Devotion of THE MUSICIANS' RESPONSE TO HERBERT 49 Private Christians, into the Common Metre to be...