1. Crown Him with many crowns,

The Lamb upon His throne:

Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns

All music but its own.

Awake, my soul, and sing

Of Him who died for thee,

And hail Him as thy matchless king

Through all eternity.

2.  Crown Him the virgin's Son,

The God incarnate born,

Whose arm those crimson trophies won

Which now His brow adorn;

Fruit of the mystic rose,

Yet of that rose the stem,

The root whence mercy ever flows,

The babe of Bethlehem.

3. Crown Him the Lord of love.

Behold His hands and side,

Rich wound, yet visible above,

In beauty glorified.

No angels in the sky

Can fully bear that sight,

But downward bend their wondering eyes

At mysteries so bright.

4.  Crown Him the Lord of life,

Who triumphed over the grave

And rose victorious in the strife

For those He came to save.

His glories now we sing,

Who died and rose on high,

Who died eternal life to bring

And lives that death may die.

5.  Crown Him the Lord of heaven

Enthroned in worlds above,

Crown Him the king to whom is given

The wondrous name of Love.

Crown Him with many crowns

As thrones before Him fall;

Crown Him, ye kings, with many crowns,

For He is king of all.

In its earliest publication in 1851, Matthew Bridges preceded this hymn with the heading "in capite ejus, diademata multa" ("On His Head Were Many Crowns").  This was three years after his conversion from the Church of England to Roman Catholicism, a religion he had strongly critiqued as a younger man.  In the 1870s, some objections were raised to the text, probably due to the Marian imagery of the hymn.  In response, Godfrey Thring wrote a modified version, which was published in 1874 undetr the title "Crown Him with Crowns of Gold." Lutheran Service Book, like most hymnals, uses a composite of these two versions, with stanzas 1 through 3 by Bridges and stanzas 4 and 5 by Thring.