FRANCK, frānk (FRANK), JOHANN: German lyric poet; b. at Guben (79 m. s.e. of Berlin), Brandenburg, June 1, 1618; d. there June 18, 1677. He studied law at Königsberg, was a councilor in his native town, later on mayor and a member of the county council of the Niederlausitz. Under the influence of the Silesian School and of Simon Dach of Königsberg he produced a series of poems and hymns, collected and edited by himself in two volumes (Guben, 1674), entitled: Teutsche Gedichte, enthaltend geistliches Zion samt Vaterunserharfe nebst irdischem Helicon oiler Lob-, Lieb-, Leidge-dichte, etc. His secular poems are forgotten; about forty of his religious songs, hymns, and psalms have been kept in the hymn-books of the German Protestant Church. Some of these are the hymn for the Holy Communion "Schmücke dich, o liebe, Seele" ("Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness"); the Advent hymn "Komm, Heidenheiland, Lösegeld" ("Come, Ransom of our captive race;" a translation into German of J. Campanus's "Veni Redemptor gentium"); a hymn to Christ, "Jesu, mein Freude" ("Jesus, my chief pleasure"). The music for his hymns by the Guben organist Christoph Peter appeared first in the Andachtscymbeln, the oldest Guben hymnbook, in 1648. In honor of Johann Franck a simple monument has been erected at the south wall of the Guben parish-church.

A. WERNER.