[Music]
Why do we mourn departing friends
Or shake at death's alarms?
'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends
To call them to his arms.
Are we not tending upward too,
As fast as time can move?
Nor would we wish the hours more slow,
To keep us from our love.
For variant forms of the tune see 'Marion' and 'I Will Arise' in this
collection. Among its related secular tunes are 'Greenwood Siding'
('Cruel Mother'), Cox, p. 522; an unnamed tune in Petrie, No. 193; 'Oh
Love it is a Killing Thing', Petrie, No. 469; and 'When First I left
Old Ireland', Petrie, No. 863. A remarkable tune resemblance and one
which opens to the imagination surprising vistas as to the possible
age of the 'New Orleans' tune, is to be seen in the Whitsuntide church
melody 'Iam Christus astra ascenderat' from the eleventh century:
[Music]
Iam Christus astra ascenderat regressus unde venerat.
The same melodic trend is seen also in the German tune set to 'Christ
der du bist der helle Tag' from the year 1568. See _Hymns Ancient and
Modern_, Nos. 178 and 604.
No. 140
HOLY SON OF GOD, REV 365