Praise, my soul, the King of heaven

The text of the hymn was first published in Lyte's The Spirit of the Psalms (1834), It was one of two hymns sung at the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla. ==Text==

The text is a free paraphrase of Psalm 103. While, in the mid-nineteenth century, hymn writers usually kept their metrical settings of psalm texts as close as possible to the original, Lyte instead decided to maintain the spirit of the words while freely paraphrasing them. The result speaks, in an imaginative fashion, with "beautiful imagery and thoughtful prose", of themes such as the Love of God, healing and forgiveness, in what is a spectacular rhetorical statement of praise. Other more modern changes, including more gender-neutral language, are relatively minor. ==Tune==

The hymn is most commonly sung to the tune "" ("Praise, my soul"), written as a setting for Lyte's words by John Goss in 1868, This was an instant success, a report in the 1869 Musical Times stating that "it is at once the most beautiful and dignified hymn tune which has lately come under our notice". Ian Bradley notes that the tune is one of "the most enduring and effective Victorian hymn tunes". The original setting by Goss is in D major. The first stanza is marked to be sung in unison with harmonies from the organ. The second is in four-part harmony (transcribed below), while the remaining stanzas are again in unison. A version in F-sharp minor was also composed for the original fourth stanza (now regularly omitted) in November 1868. > } \new Lyrics \lyricmode { } \new Staff { \clef bass \key d \major \set Staff.midiInstrument = "church organ" \relative c > } >> >> \layout { indent = #0 } \midi { \tempo 4 = 100 } An alternative tune is "Regent Square", originally written by Henry Smart for "Glory be to God the Father" by Horatius Bonar. ==Notes==