O worship the King, all glorious above! — an adaptation in English verse of Psalms 104 by Sir Robert Grant (1827)

This is the poem by Sir Robert Grant known best from its incipit “O Worship the King,” as published posthumously under the title “Psalm ⅭⅣ” by his brother Charles Grant (Lord Glenelg) in Sacred Poems by the Late Right Hon. Sir Robert Grant (1839), pp. 33-35. It was first published without attribution as hymn №31 in the Appendix of Hymns for private devotion, selected and original (ed. Bethia Fuller-Maitland, 1827) on pages 206-207. It was first published with attribution as psalm №104 in Psalms and Hymns for Public, Private, and Social Worship (ed. Henry V. Elliott, 1835) on pages 34-35. Identified as an adaptation of Psalms 104 (and with five of its six stanzas) the hymn was included as №16 in the Union hymnal for Jewish worship (1914). Brian Hehn writes, “This hymn, one of Grant’s most popular, is a paraphrase of Psalm 104. It was originally thought to have been a rendering of William Kethe’s setting of the same psalm in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter of 1561. However, Episcopal hymnologist Raymond F. Glover contends that this is a misconception. He argues that the two settings are in the same meter only because they were written for the same psalm.”

Categories:

Rosh haShanah (l’Maaseh Bereshit), Rosh Ḥodesh

Tags:

19th century C.E., 56th century A.M., English poetry, English Romanticism, hymns of creation, Prayers as poems, Psalms 104

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Robert Grant

[Gebet] Am Neumonde | Prayer for the Day of New Moon, by Fanny Schmiedl-Neuda (1855)

This is the prayer for Rosh Ḥodesh (the day of the New Moon, and first day of the month in the Jewish calendar) included by Fanny Schmiedl Neuda in her collection of teḥinot in vernacular German, Stunden der Andacht (1855). Fanny Neuda likely either composed or translated this teḥinah into German (from Yiddish) while performing in the capacity of firzogerin (precentress) of the weibershul (women’s gallery) in her husband’s synagogue in Loštice, Bohemia. The translation in English was made by Moritz Mayer in his abridged translation of Neuda’s collection, Hours of Devotion (1866).

Categories:

Rosh Ḥodesh

Tags:

19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Bohemian Jewry, German vernacular prayer, Jewish Women's Prayers, תחינות teḥinot, Teḥinot in German

Contributor(s):

Wikisource Contributors (transcription), Fanny Schmiedl-Neuda, Moritz Mayer (translation) and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Rosh Ḥodesh

O worship the King, all glorious above! — an adaptation in English verse of Psalms 104 by Sir Robert Grant (1827)

Beim Einsegnen des Neumondes (ver. 2) | At the Blessing of the New Moon (ver. 2), by Yehoshua Heshil Miro (1829)

Beim Einsegnen des Neumondes (ver. 1) | At the Blessing of the New Moon (ver. 1), by Yehoshua Heshil Miro (1829)

Meditation on the Works of God, by Grace Aguilar (ca. 1830s)

Au Renouvellement Du Mois: Sur la Brièveté de la Vie | At the New Moon: On the Brevity of Life, by Rabbi Arnaud Aron & Jonas Ennery (1848)

Prayer on the New Moon, by Marcus Heinrich Bresslau (1852)

[Gebet] Am Neumonde | Prayer for the Day of New Moon, by Fanny Schmiedl-Neuda (1855)