Praise
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise
- Words:
- Walter Chalmers Smith, 1876.
- Music:
- 'St. Denio' or 'Joanna' or 'Palestrina'
- Setting:
- "Caniadau y Cyssegr a'r Teulu", 1878, alt.
- Metre:
- 11 11 11 11
- 1Immortal, invisible, God only wise,In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,Most blessèd, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,Almighty, victorious, Thy great Name we praise.
- 2Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might;Thy justice, like mountains, high soaring aboveThy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.
- 3To all, life Thou givest, to both great and small;In all life Thou livest, the true life of all;We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,And wither and perish but naught changeth Thee.
- 4Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight;But of Thy rich graces this grace, Lord, impartTake the veil from our face, the vile from our heart.
- 5All laud we would render; O help us to see'Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee,And so let Thy glory, almighty, impart,Through Christ in His story, Thy Christ to the heart.
More sheet music
Scripture
Topics
In the hymnals
- Written in 1867, the words are in 251 hymnals indexed by Hymnary.org. Their history →
- The tune, St. Denio, is in 315 hymnals. The tune →
Words, music and setting are in the public domain. The score is from the Open Hymnal Project (Brian J. Dumont), which places its own work in the public domain. Further sheet music is from PDHymns.com. The piano is the FluidR3 General MIDI sound font (MIT licence). How many hymnals print a hymn, and when it was written, is from Hymnary.org.