Psalm 23

The King of love my shepherd is

with
DOMINUS REGIT ME
ST. COLUMBA

I. Text: Origins

This metrical paraphrase of Psalm 23 was rendered by Henry Baker (1821–1877) for the Appendix to Hymns Ancient & Modern (1868 | Fig. 1), of which he was the main textual editor. Baker, a priest in the Church of England, was vicar of the Monkland parish, and he was the third baronet of Upper Dunstable House, Richmond, inheriting the family title through his father and grandfather.

In this original printing, the text was given in six stanzas of four lines, set to DOMINUS REGIT ME, a new tune by John Bacchus Dykes (1823–1876) (attributions to the authors and composers, absent from the page, appeared in the indexes). The tune gets its name from the first three words of Psalm 23 in the Latin Vulgate Bible. Dykes’s biographer, J.T. Fowler, mentioned three key meetings between Dykes and Baker and W.H. Monk for the production of the 1868 Appendix, in February, May, and June of 1868, so this tune was likely written in that time period.[1]

The hymn had notable associations with the deaths of both men. It was sung as the opening hymn at the funeral of J.B. Dykes, 28 January 1876,[2] and as is often reported, just a year later, this hymn was on Baker’s mind as he transitioned to the afterlife:

It may interest many to know that the third verse of this lovely hymn, perhaps the most beautiful of all the countless versions of Psalm xxiii, was the last audible sentence upon the dying lips of the lamented author, February 12, 1877.[3]

II. Text: Analysis

The structure of the hymn in six stanzas corresponds to the six verses of the Psalm. The opening stanza makes special use of word inversion (“my shepherd is,” “I nothing lack”), otherwise the text flows according to normal speech rhythms. In Latin, the word “regit” as in “Dominus regit me” (“The Lord rules/guides me”) is closely associated with “rex” (“king”) or “regis” (“of the king”), thus Baker likely drew on his classical education, either consciously or subconsciously, to inject kingship into the first line; not to mention, the Latin incipit appeared in copies of the Book of Common Prayer at the time.

Given the abundance of attempts to convert Psalm 23 to English poetry, Baker’s text is often compared to what has come before it. J.R. Watson believed the choice of meter (8.7.8.7) helped Baker break away from the pack:

Baker was a bold man to tread in the steps of Whittingham, Herbert, and Addison, but his metrical psalm registers a tone as clear, and representative of his time, as theirs. The decision to use an 8.7.8.7. metre also helps to distinguish his version from others, because it allowed double rhymes (Baker was fond of double rhymes, most notably in “Lord, thy word abideth”). It also allows the delicate transformation of the earlier phrases [from the other poets], which he could not avoid.[4]

Albert Edward Bailey compared it to the wooden, literal version of the Bay Psalm Book (1640), and especially noted how Baker’s version was infused with New Testament ideas:

It is a far cry from the Bay Psalm Book to Baker. The former is bent on giving the exact language of Scripture, modified only by the necessities of meter; the Psalm remains Hebrew in all its connotations. Baker, on the other hand, exhibits the grace of the Romantic poets of modern England, and transforms a Hebrew Psalm into a Christian rhapsody.

The Christian transformation is effected by fusing into the Psalm Christ’s parable of the Good Shepherd (Jn. 10:1–5,11,14–18) and John’s teaching that Christ is the incarnation of God’s love (Jn. 15:9–14; 1 Jn. 4:8–11). The imagery is enriched also by remembered glimpses of the River of the Water of Life and the Food Celestial (Rev. 22:1–2); and the Parable in which the lost sheep is brought home with rejoicing on the shepherd’s shoulder (Lk. 15:3–7). The heavy “rod,” which in darkness or mist the shepherd clinks along the rocky path to comfort with its music the worried sheep, is now transformed into a glowing cross that pierces the gloom. “Unction” is a reminiscence of the Church’s Sacrament of anointing by which spiritual grace and salvation are ensured (James 5:14–15). The “chalice” is the cup of the Holy Communion by which sin is expunged from the souls of those who partake in faith.

Such a fusion of the old and new, metaphor with parable, the physical with the spiritual, the Judaic with the Ecclesiastical, is well-nigh a work of genius.[5]

This kind of inter-testamental approach was pioneered by Isaac Watts, whose own attempt at this resulted in the much-beloved hymn “My shepherd will supply my need,” from The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (1719). Erik Routley, in his assessment, focused on this association between Watts and Baker:

Perhaps the truth is that he has here “imitated” a psalm of David not only in the language of the New Testament, but also in the language of the Church of England of the mid-nineteenth century. But he is not to be blamed, he is not to be despised for that. Indeed, he is very much to be thanked, for he puts us, in the special treatment he gives to this psalm, a point which nobody else among its many translators has put, and it is a point of searching importance. . . .

Isaac Watts adds [in the final stanza], that we may know that God’s hospitality is not merely a tent of refuge for a night’s lodging, but a home for all time. Baker is making the astounding assertion that the church is not a temporary refuge but a home. Indeed, he is not so much asserting that as assuming it. It is the unction, the chalice, the house of praise that are the abode of felicity and safety. It is there, in those categories and in that place, that you will most fully the Shepherd’s care and the Lord’s hospitality.[6]

Baker’s text is most closely linked with the version by George Herbert, whose paraphrase began,

The God of love my shepherd is,
And He that doth me feed:
While he is mine, and I am his,
What can I want or need?

Regarding the third line of Herbert compared to the third and fourth lines of Baker, Watson noted, “The directness of Herbert has given way to something else, a consciously shaped chiasmus.”[7] In these lines, both authors seem to be referencing Song of Solomon 2:16. Like other commentators, Watson touched upon the inter-testamental approach:

Baker is using New Testament imagery to give the psalm a new meaning: the “ransom” is from Matthew 20:28, and the living water from John 4:10. A sermon is being deftly woven into the text of the psalm.[8]

In the fourth stanza, Baker added one of the most obvious New Testament terms: whereas the rod and staff provide comfort, the cross acts as a guide. Speaking of Baker’s use of the cross here, Marion Lars Hendrickson wrote:

Above all, there can be no greater comfort than that of the crucified Christ, stanza 4. For in Jesus’ crucifixion, one sees how closely “Thou art with me” (Psalm 23:4, KJV). The emphasis on life in this hymn—living water, verdant pastures, unction, grace—displays the new life that comes from the cross of Christ, for “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. . . . (Galatians 2:20).[9]

III. Tune: Analysis

Regarding the tune DOMINUS REGIT ME by J.B. Dykes, hymnologist Erik Routley praised it as a fine tune and felt it was a quintessential example of Victorian church music:

To speak of a “Victorian hymn tune” is to set off in any remotely musical mind the strains of John Bacchus Dykes’s tune to “The King of Love.” There is nothing more centrally Victorian in all English religion than those words set to that tune. Probably, without the least consciousness that he was doing anything of the kind, that folk-genius Dykes gathered up there everything that this kind of Victorian music has to say. It is a good enough piece of music to be called by Vaughan Williams himself a “beautiful tune” . . . and there was at that time no more ferocious critic of the Victorian musical manner than Ralph Vaughan Williams, except perhaps his literary editor, Percy Dearmer. It is beautiful indeed; cunning in its simplicity, inerrant in its choice of melodic texture and intervals. The way the second line is nearly, but not quite, repeated in the fourth, yet without any sense of setting a trap for the unwary, is in itself a stroke of inspiration. (You can “miss the boat” in the third line of “Holy, holy, holy,” people do get the last note wrong, but nobody wants to go wrong in DOMINUS REGIT ME, and the musical reason for this is too evident to need stating here.)

The sheer friendliness of the tune depends primarily on its choice of key and its use of the major-sixth between the low dominant and the mediant of that key in its background structure—a device which Dykes loved, but never again brought off with so little sense of mawkishness.

Finally, the tune does exactly what the words do with Psalm 23. Sir Henry Baker writes, not a pastoral paraphrase like George Herbert’s or an eighteenth-century country-house paraphrase like Addison’s, but an English parish-church paraphrase. . . . This is the purest Anglican Herefordshire, and the tune comes flying across the country from Anglican Durham to meet it. It may not be everybody’s taste, but its objective beauty is simply undeniable.[10]

IV. Tune: ST. COLUMBA

Although Baker’s text was born in conjunction with Dykes’s tune, it has also thrived when paired with the Irish folk tune known as ST. COLUMBA. The tune’s first appearance in a hymnal, and apparently its first known appearance in print, was in the Irish Church Hymnal (1864 | Fig. 2), where it was called a “Hymn of the Ancient Irish Church” and set to “Great Shepherd of thy people here [hear],” which is a common-meter text by John Newton. In this version, the melody is a relatively plain series of alternating whole and half notes.

This musical arrangement was repeated in the 1874 edition of the hymnal, mildly revised, set to the same text by Newton at No. 45 (Fig. 3), but also appearing at No. 119 with “Lord, of thy mercy hear our cry.” Here the tune was labeled S. COLUMBA while again being called a “Hymn of the Ancient Irish Church.” Baker’s text made an appearance in this hymnal at No. 295, but set to a French tune called LORRAINE. This version of ST. COLUMBA was repeated in the Appendix to the Scottish Hymnal (1885), No. 351.

Just a few years later, the tune appeared in Ancient Music of Ireland from the Petrie Collection, arranged for piano by François Hoffman (1877 | Fig. 4). The title is in reference to transcriptions of Irish folk tunes collected by George Petrie (1790–1866), president of the short-lived Society for the Preservation and Publication of the Melodies of Ireland (1851–1855); his manuscripts are now spread across three libraries in Ireland (National Library of Ireland, Trinity College Library, Irish Traditional Music Archive). The present location of the manuscript for this tune is unclear. In this published example, the tune was included in a section labeled “Specimens of the Ancient Church Music of Ireland,” and this melody was headed “Sung at the dedication of a church.” The first six bars were a bit more embellished than what had appeared in the Irish Church Hymnal, but the back half of the tune is the same.

A much larger, more comprehensive set of tunes from Petrie’s collection was edited by Charles Villiers Stanford and published as The Complete Collection of Irish Music as Noted by George Petrie (Parts I & II, 1902; Part III, 1905). This tune was included in Part II, No. 1043, labeled “Irish hymn sung on the dedication of a chapel—Co. of Londonderry.” Notice in this instance how the repeated notes at the ends of the first and second half of the tune are not marked by ties, thus making it suitable for texts of 8.7.8.7, and here the triplet figure seen in Fig. 4 was rendered in unequal rhythms.

At the time, Stanford was also serving on the committee for a new edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern (1904). In that collection, the tune appeared with “As now the sun’s declining rays,” a text by John Chandler, translated from a Latin text by Charles Coffin. This version of the tune is a strange cross between the Irish Church Hymnal rendition (Figs. 2–3), and the one in Ancient Music of Ireland (Fig. 4). The harmonization was left uncredited.

Lastly, the pairing of ST. COLUMBA with “The King of love my shepherd is” was made in The English Hymnal (1906 | Fig. 7). In the preface to that collection, the editors specifically lamented their inability to secure the rights to print “such beautiful tunes as Dykes’ ‘Dominus regit me’ or Stainer’s ‘In Memoriam.’”[11] As a felicitous consequence, their choice of replacement has proven to be popular. On the page, the tune was credited as “Ancient Irish Hymn Melody (Original form),” and it is indeed very close to how it appeared in Fig. 5, including its format as a tune for 8.7.8.7. In the preface, xviii, the harmonization was credited to Charles Villiers Stanford.

When this tune was included in Songs of Praise (1925), musical editor Ralph Vaughan Williams changed the harmonization of the last chord of the first phrase, and this revised setting has been repeated in other collections.

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
29 April 2021

Footnotes:

1. J.T. Fowler, Life and Letters of John Bacchus Dykes (London: J. Murray, 1897), pp. 119–120: Archive.org

2. This was reported by John Ellerton in Church Hymns with Tunes . . . with Notes and Illustrations (London: SPCK, 1881), p. lxxxiv: HathiTrust; see also Graham Cory, The Life, Works, and Enduring Significance of the Rev. John Bacchus Dykes, dissertation (Durham, 2016), p. 147: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11701/

3. Edward Darling & Donald Davison, “The King of love my shepherd is,” Companion to Church Hymnal (2005), p. 1187.

4. J.R. Watson, The English Hymn (1997), p. 391.

5. Albert Edward Bailey, “The King of love my shepherd is,” The Gospel in Hymns (1950), p. 364.

6. Erik Routley, “The King of love my shepherd is,” Hymns and the Faith (1955), pp. 65–68.

7. J.R. Watson, The English Hymn (1997), p. 391.

8. J.R. Watson, The English Hymn (1997), p. 392.

9. Marion Lars Hendrickson, “The King of love my shepherd is,” Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns, vol. 1 (2019), p. 974.

10. Erik Routley, The Musical Wesleys (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1968), pp. 197–198; Routley’s opinion of the tune progressed over time, having been less enamored in his essay “Victorian Hymn Composers II—John Bacchus Dykes, 1823–1876,” Bulletin of the Hymn Society, vol. 2, no. 3 (July 1948); see also a brief reference in The Music of Christian Hymns (1981), p. 97.

11. The English Hymnal (1906), p. xi.

Related Resources:

John Julian, “The King of love my shepherd is,” A Dictionary of Hymnology (London: J. Murray, 1892), pp. 1152–1153: HathiTrust

“As now the sun’s declining rays,” “The King of love my shepherd is,” Hymns Ancient & Modern, Historical Edition (1909), p. 22, 552–553: HathiTrust

H. Augustine Smith, “The King of love my shepherd is,” Lyric Religion: The Romance of Immortal Hymns (NY: Fleming H. Revell, 1931), pp. 392–394.

Albert Edward Bailey, “The King of love my shepherd is,” The Gospel in Hymns (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), p. 364.

Erik Routley, “The King of love my shepherd is,” Hymns and the Faith (London: J. Murray, 1955), pp. 63–68.

Frank Colquhoun, “The King of love my shepherd is,” Hymns that Live (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1980), pp. 290–297.

J.R. Watson & Kenneth Trickett, “The King of love my shepherd is,” Companion to Hymns & Psalms (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing, 1988), p. 74.

Robin Leaver, “The King of love my shepherd is,” The Hymnal 1982 Companion, vol. 3B (NY: Church Hymnal Corp., 1994), pp. 1185–1188.

J.R. Watson, The English Hymn (Oxford: University Press, 1997), pp. 391–392.

J.R. Watson, “The King of love my shepherd is,” An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (Oxford: University Press, 2002), pp. 313–314.

Edward Darling & Donald Davison, “The King of love my shepherd is,” Companion to Church Hymnal (Dublin: Columba, 2005), pp. 1185–1187.

Robert Cottrill, “The King of love my shepherd is,” Wordwise Hymns (6 March 2013):
https://wordwisehymns.com/2013/03/06/the-king-of-love-my-shepherd-is/

Graham Cory, “DOMINUS REGIT ME,” The Life, Works, and Enduring Significance of the Rev. John Bacchus Dykes, dissertation (Durham, 2016), pp. 207–208: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11701/

George William Rutler, “The King of love my shepherd is,” The Stories of Hymns (Irondale, AL: EWTN, 2016), pp. 247–248.

Carl P. Daw, Jr. “The King of love my shepherd is,” Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016), pp. 761–762.

Marion Lars Hendrickson & Joe Herl, “The King of love my shepherd is,” Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia, 2019), pp. 973–976.

Gordon Giles, “The King of love my shepherd is,” Church Music Quarterly (RSCM: June 2021), pp. 32–34.

Beverly Howard, “My shepherd will supply my need,” Sing with Understanding, 3rd ed., edited by C. Michael Hawn (Chicago: GIA, 2022), pp. 148–150.

“The King of love my shepherd is,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/the_king_of_love_my_shepherd_is