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My Song Is Love Unknown

1. My song is love unknown,
my Savior’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?

2. He came from his blest throne,
salvation to bestow;
but men cared not, and none
the longed-for Christ would know.
But oh, my Friend, my Friend indeed,
who at my need his life did spend!

3. Sometimes they strew his way,
and his sweet praises sing;
resounding all the day
hosannas to their King.
Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
and for his death they thirst and cry.

4. 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.

– Samuel Crossman (1623-1683)

 

Sung by Susan Diamond

Click here for sheet music

Commentary: “My Song Is Love Unknown” is the best-known hymn of Anglican minister Samuel Crossman. Crossman wrote it in 1664, in the midst of a period of exile from the Church of England, where he had caused controversy with his support of Puritanism. This he later renounced, and once reinstated in the Church, he became a royal chaplain, then, in 1683, a dean of Bristol Cathedral.

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