2:28, #332 How Can I Keep From Singing?

Enya is an Irish singer that has my attention with five of her cds since The Cook discovered her "And Winter Came" album. "How Can I Keep From Singing?" is my current tear-jerking favorite single...although..."Auld Lang Syne" by Straght No Chaser is in a dead heat for that honor. I Googled the song and learned it was written by American Baptist minister/literature professor/hymn writer Robert Wadsworth Lowry in 1860...just before the American Civil War was about to kick in! Oh, yeah, the music was written by my all-time favorite, Ira Sankey (a Union Volunteer from Pennsylvania), often know as Dwight L. Moody's side-kick who composed the music to "The Ninety and Nine" as he was playing it in public after a short "help me, Lord" type prayer!!

Enya sings the Pete Seeger version that removes the Christian context. Well, here's how it's supposed to be sung, since public domain covers the hymn today:

My life flows on in endless song;
Above earth’s lamentation
I hear the sweet though far off hymn
That hails a new creation:
Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul—
How can I keep from singing?

What though my joys and comforts die?
The Lord my Savior liveth;
What though the darkness gather round!
Songs in the night He giveth:
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that refuge clinging;
Since Christ is Lord of Heav’n and earth,
How can I keep from singing?

I lift mine eyes; the cloud grows thin;
I see the blue above it;
And day by day this pathway smoothes
Since first I learned to love it:
The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
A fountain ever springing:
All things are mine since I am His—
How can I keep from singing?