Amazing Grace Lyrics

Cafe Society
1

Amazing Grace has a basic abab rhyme scheme:

John Newton, Olney Hymns, 1779

Even in contemporary English, it rhymes perfectly, except at the third verse:

Thro’ many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

This doesn’t seem to rhyme at all (unless snares rhymes with far and come rhymes with home? :dubious:).

Was it customary at the time to have the third verse of a hymn to not follow the rhyme scheme of the rest or is this just some kind of stylistic choice (aka laziness or, gasp, a mistake :eek:) on mister John Newton’s part?

2

Since this is about a song, let’s move it to Cafe Society.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

3

Well, *secures *and endures don’t really rhyme either, do they?

I don’t think it matters much one way or another, nor was it a deliberate design. Just turned out that way, that’s all.

4

There’s another verse in one of the Poldark books (the first set of six). The only line I can remember (it’s been almost 40 years!) is the last one: Cast out by perfect love.

I don’t have time to look it up right now, but maybe someone out there knows where to find it?

5

They don’t? I’m pretty sure they do.

6

Not to my ear. The song is still perfectly singable, though.

We really don’t know what an eighteenth-century English accent sounded like, so who knows?

7

secure
IPA: /sɪˈkjʊə/

endure
IPA: /ɪnˈdjʊə/

Game, set, match. :stuck_out_tongue:

8

That’s contemporary English (British) pronunciation. Still doesn’t sound the same to me.

9

Just sang it in church this morning, with a bluegrass band accompaniment!

10

I’ve always liked the Creative Anachronists’ version:

A grazing mace,
how sweet the sound
that slays a wretch like thee!
You’re lying dead
upon the ground,
and yielded the field
to me!

:cool:

11

I believe there were times in earlier English pronunciation that come was pronounced with a long O sound, rhyming just fine with “home”.

12

There’s this verse too, which doesn’t rhyme abab:

When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun

13

“Come” and “home” do end with the same consonant sound, however, which is called consonance, so there’s that.

I wonder if Newton was inspired by the line “Amazing pity! grace unknown! and love beyond degree,” from Isaac Watts’ hymn “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed”, which was written 72 years before his hymn.

Do you know Newton’s life story? Pretty intense.

14

Given the similarities in spelling, I would guess they did rhyme in the past, save for the s at the end of snares. I know love and prove rhymed in Shakespeare’s day. And I know British English was rhotic until around 1775. So there was a lot of change going on.

Unfortunately, a quick Google didn’t find anything on 18th century English pronunciations.

15

FWIW, “secures” and “endures” rhyme perfectly for me (I grew up in the Midwest).

I’m not sure that the “When we’ve been there ten thousand years” verse signifies in this discussion; Newton didn’t write it.

Can’t speak for sure about the pronunciation of “come” and “home” in newton’s time, but just to point out that this is not the only hymn which rhymes the two words: “Come ye thankful people, come/Raise the song of harvest home” is another (written in 1844, says Wikipedia). So is “Watchman, tell Us of the Night,” which includes the stanza “Watchman, you may go your way/hasten to your quiet home./Traveler, we rejoice today,/for Emmanuel has come!” There are other examples too–happy to dig them up if you want them.

I would guess one of two things: either it was acceptable, if not standard, “back then” for one of the words to be pronounced to rhyme with the other (most likely “come” pronounced as “comb,” as someone mentioned upstairs); or the words didn’t ever rhyme precisely, but the similarity in sounds allowed hymn writers to rhyme the two words as a matter of convention.

It would not shock me to learn, similarly, that “snare” was once pronounced (either regularly or occasionally) to rhyme with car/bar/par/far. “Are” is usually pronounced that way, after all.

Anyway, a few other examples of words that are closer today to being “eye-rhymes” than to “ear-rhymes” that appear in hymnody: “one/throne” (Isaac Watts), “throne/none” and “home/tomb” (Samuel Crossman), “love/move” (several), “proclaim/Bethlehem” (whoever was responsible for Hark the Herald Angels Sing) “God/load”…and many more.

I agree that the verse mentioned in the OP is a little less “regular” than the others in the specific hymn “Amazing grace,” but there’s nothing unusual in a broader sense about the rhyme (or lack thereof).

16

I can actually easily sing come and home where they rhyme, while still sounding right. Neither are pronounced exactly as they are normally. It uses a more rounded schwa sound. It’s the same sound that can lead people to think gulf and golf sound the same.

I’m also aware of a “far” pronunciation that sounds more like “fur,” with a very hard rhotic R. This, however, sounds like a completely different accent than the above.