All Together Now

Richard Jenkyns

• Abide with Me: The World of Victorian Hymns by Ian Bradley
  SCM, 299 pp, £30.00, June 1997, ISBN 0 334 02692 X
• The English Hymn: A Critical and Historical Study by J.R. Watson
  Oxford, 552 pp, £65.00, July 1997, ISBN 0 19 826762 2

What is the best known Victorian poem? Which American poems of the same period are best known in this country? Which verses by a canonical English poet do the largest number of people today know by heart? The best known Victorian poem is probably ‘Good King Wenceslas’ (by J.M. Neale), followed by ‘Once in royal David’s city’ (Mrs Alexander); ‘All things bright and beautiful’ (also Mrs Alexander) is less familiar than it used to be, but was once possibly the best known of all. The most famous American poem of the Victorian age is ‘Away in a manger’ (anonymous), with ‘O little town of Bethlehem’ (Phillips Brooks) and ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind’ (John Greenleaf Whittier) as runners-up. Among the works of the canonical English poets, the lines known to most people are probably those beginning Blake’s Milton, ‘And did those feet in ancient time ...’, which Parry set to music and turned into the hymn ‘Jerusalem’.