Sunday, February 20, 2011

Brightly Beams our Parents' Mercy

I love this song, but I don't hear it very often. Here is  Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy. "Father's" has been changed to "Parents'" and verbs have been changed to reflect the plural noun. I changed "seaman" to "sailor" and "brother" to "friend, dear" to include all people. "Sibling" sounded too impersonal.


Brightly beams our Parents' mercy
From their lighthouse evermore,
But to us they give the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.

Dark the night of sin has settled;
Loud the angry billows roar.
Eager eyes are watching, longing,
For the lights along the shore.

Trim your feeble lamp, friend dear;
Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost.

Chorus:
Let the lower lights be burning;
Send a gleam across the wave.
Some poor fainting, struggling sailor
You may rescue, you may save.

2 comments:

Katrina said...

love it!

cc said...

This piece is interesting for me. The first time I ever actually heard it sung, was when my husband sang it in a men's group at church. So it just felt like a men's song and "Father" didn't seem out of place, (and I liked the sound of it with men's voices, so I didn't think much about it at the time) But I've since heard other versions of it, and I really love the sentiment of the song as well as the tune, so I like the idea of making it more inclusive.