How Can I Keep from Singing?

Titled "Always Rejoicing", and attributed to "Pauline T.",[1][2] the text reads: My life flows on in endless song; Above earth's lamentation, I catch the sweet†, tho' far-off hymn That hails a new creation; Thro' all the tumult and the strife I hear the music ringing; It finds an echo in my soul— How can I keep from singing?

No storm can shake my inmost calm While to that refuge clinging; Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, How can I keep from singing?

Lewis Hartsough, citing Bright Jewels as source of the lyrics and crediting Lowry for the tune, included "How Can I Keep from Singing?"

[8] Doris Plenn learned the original hymn from her grandmother, who reportedly believed that it dated from the early days of the Quaker movement.

Plenn contributed the following verse around 1950, and it was taken up by Pete Seeger and other folk revivalists:[2] When tyrants tremble, sick with fear, And hear their death-knell ringing, When friends rejoice both far and near, How can I keep from singing?

The Unitarian Universalist hymnal, printed in 1993 and following, credits the words as an "Early Quaker song" and the music as an "American gospel tune".

But learning it in social activist circles of the fifties and hearing Seeger's (erroneous) attribution endeared the song to many contemporary Quakers, who have adopted it as a sort of anthem.

The song received new prominence in 1991 when Irish musician Enya released a recording of the hymn on her album Shepherd Moons.

Enya's version follows Pete Seeger's replacement of some more overtly Christian lines, for example: "What tho' my joys and comforts die?

The video clip features Enya singing in a church in the Gaoth Dobhair countryside while also including archive footage of political figures such as Nelson Mandela and Boris Yeltsin, among others, and references to the Gulf War and famine.