Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee Lyrics Henry van Dyke, 1911

Henry van Dyke, a Presbyterian minister and Princeton professor of English, wrote the words in 1907. He sent a manuscript to the hymnologist Louis F. Benson with a penciled date of 27 November 1907, and a letter of 4 December 1907 says he wrote the words with Beethoven's melody in mind. That melody is the main theme from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824. Elam Ives Jr. adapted it as a hymn tune in 1846, and Edward Hodges published a hymn version in The Trinity Collection of Church Music in 1864. Van Dyke revised the start of stanza 4 in October 1910. The Presbyterian Hymnal of 1911 printed the text with Beethoven's tune, and that version became the standard. Sources give different dates for the writing. Hymnary lists 1907 in its header and says around 1908 in its notes, and van Dyke's Poems of 1911 dates the poem 1908. A family story says he handed the manuscript to Harry Garfield, the new president of Williams College, and told him the mountains were his inspiration. The Hymnology Archive calls that story questionable. Hymnary reads the first stanzas as praise from creation and says stanza 3 turns to Christ. The hymn appears in about 310 hymnals.