"Faith believes NOR questions how"

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I love the Dix hymn “Alleluia! Sing to Jesus”, which we sang at the end of Mass today… but I’ve always wondered what the use of the word “nor” in the second stanza means:

Alleluia! not as orphans are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia! He is near us, faith believes, nor questions how;
Though the cloud from sight received Him when the forty days were o’er
Shall our hearts forget His promise, “I am with you evermore”?

“Nor” is meant to link two negative concepts together, but believing is not a negative concept. “Faith neither doubts nor questions how” would work, but “faith believes nor questions how” doesn’t seem right.

Can anyone explain?
 
japhy said:
I love the Dix hymn “Alleluia! Sing to Jesus”, which we sang at the end of Mass today… but I’ve always wondered what the use of the word “nor” in the second stanza means:

Alleluia! not as orphans are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia! He is near us, faith believes, nor questions how;
Though the cloud from sight received Him when the forty days were o’er
Shall our hearts forget His promise, “I am with you evermore”?

“Nor” is meant to link two negative concepts together, but believing is not a negative concept. “Faith neither doubts nor questions how” would work, but “faith believes nor questions how” doesn’t seem right.

Can anyone explain?
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Poetic license.

Seriously. It’s not proper grammar.

The only way it might work is that if the “nor” refers back to the “not as orphans”

“not as orphans are we left, nor questions how”

Maybe “faith believes not questions how” would sound a little better (but no one asked me).

🤷
 
japhy said:
I love the Dix hymn “Alleluia! Sing to Jesus”, which we sang at the end of Mass today… but I’ve always wondered what the use of the word “nor” in the second stanza means:

Alleluia! not as orphans are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia! He is near us, faith believes, nor questions how;
Though the cloud from sight received Him when the forty days were o’er
Shall our hearts forget His promise, “I am with you evermore”?

“Nor” is meant to link two negative concepts together, but believing is not a negative concept. “Faith neither doubts nor questions how” would work, but “faith believes nor questions how” doesn’t seem right.

Can anyone explain?
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This is perfectly grammatical. It is simply a somewhat old-fashioned usage in which “nor” means “and not”; see def. 3 here. Latin nec is regularly used this way too.
 
Thank you to all. Mark pointed out a definition of “nor” that I was not aware of, but which fits the use of the word in the hymn. I was glad to see it was more than mere poetic license, because the word “ne’er” would have avoided the need for invoking said license.
 
japhy said:
Thank you to all. Mark pointed out a definition of “nor” that I was not aware of, but which fits the use of the word in the hymn. I was glad to see it was more than mere poetic license, because the word “ne’er” would have avoided the need for invoking said license.
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FWIW I got my hands on the Oxford English Dictionary definition, and def. 5 of “nor” reads, “Following upon an affirmative clause, or in continuative narration, with the force of neither or and…not.” Examples from literature include “Come nor tarry to greet her” and “The little creature cried and laid down, nor could all our beating raise it.” I’m reminded as well of one of the great stanzas from FitzGerald’s translation of Khayyam: “The moving Finger writes, and having writ / Moves on. Nor all thy piety nor wit / Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, / Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”

Incidentally, was my eventual answer to your question about “et quod tibi obtulit summus sacerdos tuus Melchisedech” satisfactory? I never heard what you thought on that one.
 
japhy said:
Thank you to all. Mark pointed out a definition of “nor” that I was not aware of, but which fits the use of the word in the hymn. I was glad to see it was more than mere poetic license, because the word “ne’er” would have avoided the need for invoking said license.
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Thank you for asking. I have wondered about this myself. I am glad to know about the other meaning of “nor”.
 
japhy said:
I Alleluia! He is near us, faith believes, nor questions how;
?
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sounds as if the grammar got shortened so the line would scan
faith believes, neither does [faith, the believer] question how
but the usage is common, if a bit archaic, in poetic style, and not incorrect
 
“Faith believes, and doesn’t question how” doesn’t fit the meter of the Hyfrydol tune. Perhaps “Faith believes, and questions not how” would work, but I hate to tamper with old hymn texts.
 
Cavaille-Coll said:
“Faith believes, and doesn’t question how” doesn’t fit the meter of the Hyfrydol tune. Perhaps “Faith believes, and questions not how” would work, but I hate to tamper with old hymn texts.
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Your change would fit into the tune HYFRYDOL because of the eighth notes that occur on the syllable “ques-” (which your version sets individually to “ques-tions”), but it actually lengthens that line from seven to eight syllables, thereby ruining the regularity of the meter and potentially preventing the words from being set to other 8.7.8.7 D hymntunes.
 
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