Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee,
Opening to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness,
Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day!
All Thy works with joy surround Thee,
Earth and heaven reflect Thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around Thee,
Center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
Flowery meadow, flashing sea,
Chanting bird and flowing fountain,
Call us to rejoice in Thee.
Public domain hymn text (1907). Words by Henry van Dyke.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Henry van Dyke was an American clergyman, diplomat, and professor of English literature at Princeton University who wrote this hymn's text in 1907, reportedly composing it in a single morning while a guest at Williams College in Massachusetts, where he had been invited to preach. According to the account he later gave, he handed the finished poem to the college president that same morning with the instruction that it be sung specifically to the tune of the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a piece of purely instrumental orchestral and choral music with no prior devotional lyrics attached to it in English.
Van Dyke deliberately wrote the text to fit that already-existing, world-famous symphonic melody rather than having a new tune composed for his words, an unusual reversal of the more typical process represented by most hymns in this collection, where words are far more commonly fitted to an existing tune written specifically for congregational use rather than borrowed wholesale from a major orchestral masterpiece never originally intended for congregational singing at all.
Van Dyke also served for a period as United States Minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg under President Woodrow Wilson, and he was a prolific author of essays, poetry, and short fiction well beyond his hymn writing, including a well-known short story called 'The Story of the Other Wise Man.' He reportedly stated that he wanted the hymn's text to express religious joy specifically through the natural world's own abundance, rather than through more conventional language of sin, guilt, or rescue found in many of the era's revival hymns.
The pairing of van Dyke's confidently joyful English text with Beethoven's already-beloved 'Ode to Joy' melody proved so successful that the combination has become, for many English-speaking congregations, the primary way they encounter Beethoven's famous tune at all, the hymn now sung in churches worldwide by congregations who may have no idea the melody originated in a nineteenth-century German symphony rather than in any dedicated hymn tune tradition.
