"In Whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend"

Re-posted because Ray Ortlund, whose blog posting originally called it to my attention, does so once more. It is a wonderful hymn, always appropriate, but particularly in this season:

My song is love unknown,

My Saviour’s love to me;

Love to the loveless shown,

That they might lovely be.

O who am I, that for my sake

My Lord should take frail flesh and die?

He came from His blest throne

Salvation to bestow;

But men made strange, and none

The longed-for Christ would know:

But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed,

Who at my need His life did spend.

Here might I stay and sing,

No story so divine;

Never was love, dear King!

Never was grief like Thine.

This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise

I all my days could gladly spend.

Samuel Crossman, 1664

YouTube - My Song Is Love Unknown