Lift Up Your Hearts!

Lift up your hearts! is an English hymn written in 1881 by H. Montague Butler. The words echo the English translation of the Sursum corda, a part of the communion liturgy in Christian churches.

Music

In the Church of England, "Lift up your hearts!" is usually sung to Woodlands, a musical setting composed by Walter Greatorex for Gresham's School (where he was Director of Music) in 1916. Woodlands is the name of a house at the school.

chool song

The hymn became the school song of Walter Greatorex's old school, Derby, Haileybury College, Hertford, and also of Poundswick Grammar School, Wythenshawe, Manchester.

Words

“Lift up your hearts!” We lift them, Lord, to Thee;
Here at Thy feet none other may we see;
“Lift up your hearts!” E’en so, with one accord,
We lift them up, we lift them to the Lord.

Above the level of the former years,
The mire of sin, the weight of guilty fears,
The mist of doubt, the blight of love’s decay,
O Lord of Light, lift all our hearts today!

Above the swamps of subterfuge and shame,
The deeds, the thoughts, that honor may not name,
The halting tongue that dares not tell the whole,
O Lord of Truth, lift every Christian soul!

Above the storms that vex this lower state,
Pride, jealousy, and envy, rage, and hate,
And cold mistrust that holds e’en friends apart,
O Lord of Love, lift every brother’s heart!

Lift every gift that Thou Thyself hast given;
Low lies the best till lifted up to heaven;
Low lie the bounding heart, the teeming brain,
Till, sent from God, they mount to God again.

Then, as the trumpet call, in after years,
“Lift up your hearts!” rings pealing in our ears,
Still shall those hearts respond, with full accord
“We lift them up, we lift them to the Lord!”

References

* [http://junior.apk.net/~bmames/ht0246_.htm Lift up your hearts! at The Ames Collection]
* [http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/l/i/liftupyh.htm Lift up your hearts! at cyberhymnal.org]