CHRISTIAN BALLADS.
Echoes of Hebrew thought, if not Hebrew psalmody, may have made their
way into the more serious pagan literature. At least in the more
enlightened pagans there has ever revealed itself more or less the
instinct of the human soul that "feels after" God. St. Paul in his
address to the Athenians made a tactful as well as scholarly point to
preface a missionary sermon when he cited a line from a poem of Aratus
(B.C. 272) familiar, doubtless, to the majority of his hearers.
Dr. Lyman Abbot has thus translated the passage in which the line
occurs:
Let us begin from God. Let every mortal raise
The grateful voice to tune God's endless praise,
God fills the heaven, the earth, the sea, the air;
We feel His spirit moving everywhere,
And we His offspring are.[17] He, ever good,
Daily provides for man his daily food.
To Him, the First, the Last, all homage yield,--
Our Father wonderful, our help, our shield.
[Footnote 17: [Greek: Tou gar kai genos esmen.]]
"RISE, CROWNED WITH LIGHT."
Alexander Pope, a Roman Catholic poet, born in London 1688, died at
Twickenham 1744, was not a hymnist, but passages in his most serious and
exalted flights deserve a tuneful accompaniment. His translations of
Homer made him famous, but his ethical poems, especially his "Essay on
Man," are inexhaustible mines of quotation, many of the lines and
couplets being common as proverbs. His "Messiah," written about 1711, is
a religious anthem in which the prophecies of Holy Writ kindle all the
splendor of his verse.
_THE TUNE._
The closing strain, indicated by the above line, has been divided into
stanzas of four lines suitable to a church hymn-tune. The melody
selected by the compilers of the _Plymouth Hymnal_, and of the
_Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book_ is "Savannah," an American sounding name
for what is really one of Pleyel's chorals. The music is worthy of
Pope's triumphal song.
The seas shall waste, the skies to smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away,
But fixed His Word; His saving power remains:
Thy realm shall last; thy own Messiah reigns.
"OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT?"
This is a sombre poem, but its virile strength and its literary merit
have given it currency, and commended it to the taste of many people,
both weak and strong, who have the pensive temperament. Abraham Lincoln
loved it and committed it to memory in his boyhood. Philip Phillips set
it to music, and sang it--or a part of it--one day during the Civil war
at the anniversary of the Christian Sanitary Commission, when President
Lincoln, who was present, called for its repetition.[18] It was written
by William Knox, born 1789, son of a Scottish farmer.
[Footnote 18: This account so nearly resembles the story of Mrs. Gates'
"Your Mission," sung to a similar audience, on a similar occasion, by
the same man, that a possible confusion by the narrators of the incident
has been suggested. But that Mr. Phillips sang twice before the
President during the war does not appear to be contradicted. To what air
he sang the above verses is uncertain.]
The poem has fourteen stanzas, the following being the first and two
last--
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to rest in the grave.
* * * * *
Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge upon surge.
'Tis the wink of an eye; 'tis the draft of a breath
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Philip Phillips was born in Jamestown, Chautauqua Co., N.Y., Aug. 11,
1834, and died in Delaware, O., June 25, 1895. He wrote no hymns and was
not an educated musician, but the airs of popular hymn-music came to him
and were harmonized for him by others, most frequently by his friends,
S.J. Vail and Hubert P. Main. He compiled and published thirty-one
collections for Sunday-schools and gospel meetings, besides the
_Methodist Hymn and Tune Book_, issued in 1866.
He was a pioneer gospel singer, and his tuneful journeys through
America, England and Australia gave him the name of the "Singing
Pilgrim," the title of his song collection (1867).
"WHEN ISRAEL OF THE LORD BELOVED."
The "Song of Rebecca the Jewess," in "Ivanhoe," was written by Sir
Walter Scott, author of the Waverly Novels, "Marmion," etc., born in
Edinburgh, 1771, and died at Abbotsford, 1832. The lines purport to be
the Hebrew hymn with which Rebecca closed her daily devotions while in
prison under sentence of death.
When Israel of the Lord beloved
Out of the land of bondage came
Her fathers' God before her moved,
An awful Guide in smoke and flame.
* * * * *
Then rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answered keen,
And Zion's daughters poured their lays.
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
* * * * *
By day along th' astonished lands
The cloudy Pillar glided slow,
By night Arabia's crimson'd sands
Returned the fiery Column's glow.
* * * * *
And O, when gathers o'er our path
In shade and storm the frequent night
Be Thou, long suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining Light!
The "Hymn of Rebecca" has been set to music though never in common use
as a hymn. Old "Truro", by Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814) is a grand
Scotch psalm harmony for the words, though one of the Unitarian hymnals
borrows Zeuner's sonorous choral, the "Missionary Chant." Both sound the
lyric of the Jewess in good Christian music.
"WE SAT DOWN AND WEPT BY THE WATERS."
The 137th Psalm has been for centuries a favorite with poets and
poetical translators, and its pathos appealed to Lord Byron when engaged
in writing his _Hebrew Melodies_.
Byron was born in London, 1788, and died at Missolonghi, Western Greece,
1824.
We sat down and wept by the waters
Of Babel, and thought of the day
When the foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem's high places his prey,
And ye, Oh her desolate daughters,
Were scattered all weeping away.
--Written April, 1814. It was the fashion then for musical societies to
call on the popular poets for contributions, and tunes were composed for
them, though these have practically passed into oblivion.
Byron's ringing ballad (from II Kings 19:35)--
Th' Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
--has been so much a favorite for recitation and declamation that the
loss of its tune is never thought of.
Another poetic rendering of the "Captivity Psalm" is worthy of notice
among the lay hymns not unworthy to supplement clerical sermons. It was
written by the Hon. Joel Barlow in 1799, and published in a pioneer
psalm-book at Northampton, Mass. It is neither a translation nor
properly a hymn but a poem built upon the words of the Jewish lament,
and really reproducing something of its plaintive beauty. Two stanzas of
it are as follows:
Along the banks where Babel's current flows
Our captive bands in deep despondence strayed,
While Zion's fall in deep remembrance rose,
Her friends, her children mingled with the dead.
The tuneless harps that once with joy we strung
When praise employed, or mirth inspired the lay,
In mournful silence on the willows hung,
And growing grief prolonged the tedious day.
Like Pope, this American poet loved onomatope and imitative verse, and
the last line is a word-picture of home-sick weariness. This "psalm"
was the best piece of work in Mr. Barlow's series of attempted
improvements upon Isaac Watts--which on the whole were not very
successful. The sweet cantabile of Mason's "Melton" gave "Along the
banks" quite an extended lease of life, though it has now ceased to be
sung.
Joel Barlow was a versatile gentleman, serving his country and
generation in almost every useful capacity, from chaplain in the
continental army to foreign ambassador. He was born in Redding, Ct.,
1755, and died near Cracow, Poland, Dec. 1812.
"AS DOWN IN THE SUNLESS."
Thomas Moore, the poet of glees and love-madrigals, had sober thoughts
in the intervals of his gaiety, and employed his genius in writing
religious and even devout poems, which have been spiritually helpful in
many phases of Christian experience. Among them was this and the four
following hymns, with thirty-four others, each of which he carefully
labelled with the name of a music composer, though the particular tune
is left indefinite. "The still prayer of devotion" here answers, in
rhyme and reality, the simile of the sea-flower in the unseen deep, and
the mariner's compass represents the constancy of a believer.
As, still to the star of its worship, though clouded,
The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea,
So, dark as I roam in this wintry world shrouded,
The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.
It is sung in _Plymouth Hymnal_ to Barnby's "St. Botolph."
"THE TURF SHALL BE MY FRAGRANT SHRINE"
Is, in part, still preserved in hymn collections, and sung to the noble
tune of "Louvan," Virgil Taylor's piece. The last stanza is especially
reminiscent of the music.
There's nothing bright above, below,
From flowers that bloom to stars that glow;
But in its light my soul can see
Some feature of Thy deity.
"O THOU WHO DRY'ST THE MOURNER'S TEAR"
Is associated in the _Baptist Praise Book_ with Woodbury's "Siloam."
"THE BIRD LET LOOSE IN EASTERN SKIES"
Has been sung in Mason's "Coventry," and the _Plymouth Hymnal_ assigns
it to "Spohr"--a namesake tune of Louis Spohr, while the _Unitarian Hymn
and Tune Book_ unites to it a beautiful triple-time melody from Mozart,
and bearing his name.
"THOU ART, O GOD, THE LIFE AND LIGHT."
This is the best of the Irish poet's sacred songs--always excepting,
"Come, Ye Disconsolate." It is said to have been originally set to a
secular melody composed by the wife of Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
It is joined to the tune of "Brighton" in the Unitarian books, and
William Monk's "Matthias" voices the words for the _Plymouth Hymnal_.
The verses have the true lyrical glow, and make a real song of praise as
well a composition of more than ordinary literary beauty.
Thou art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night
Are but reflections caught from Thee.
Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine.
* * * * *
When night with wings of starry gloom
O'ershadows all the earth, and skies
Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes,
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord, are Thine.
When youthful spring around us breathes,
Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh,
And every flower the summer wreathes
Is born beneath that kindling eye.
Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine.
"MOURNFULLY, TENDERLY, BEAR ON THE DEAD."
A tender funeral ballad by Henry S. Washburn, composed in 1846 and
entitled "The Burial of Mrs. Judson." It is rare now in sheet-music form
but the _American Vocalist_, to be found in the stores of most great
music publishers and dealers, preserves the full poem and score.
Its occasion was the death at sea, off St. Helena, of the Baptist
missionary, Mrs. Sarah Hall Boardman Judson, and the solemn committal of
her remains to the dust on that historic island, Sept. 1, 1845. She was
on her way to America from Burmah at the time of her death, and the ship
proceeded on its homeward voyage immediately after her burial. The
touching circumstances of the gifted lady's death, and the strange
romance of her entombment where Napoleon's grave was made twenty-four
years before, inspired Mr. Washburn, who was a prominent layman of the
Baptist denomination, and interested in all its ecclesiastical and
missionary activities, and he wrote this poetic memorial of the event:
Mournfully, tenderly, bear on the dead;
Where the warrior has lain, let the Christian be laid.
No place more befitting, O rock of the sea;
Never such treasure was hidden in thee.
Mournfully, tenderly, solemn and slow;
Tears are bedewing the path as ye go;
Kindred and strangers are mourners today;
Gently, so gently, O bear her away.
Mournfully, tenderly, gaze on that brow;
Beautiful is it in quietude now.
One look, and then settle the loved to her rest
The ocean beneath her, the turf on her breast.
Mrs. Sarah Judson was the second wife of the Rev. Adoniram Judson, D.D.,
the celebrated pioneer American Baptist missionary, and the mother by
her first marriage, of the late Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D., LL.D.,
of Philadelphia.
The Hon. Henry S. Washburn was born in Providence, R.I., 1813, and
educated at Brown University. During most of his long life he resided in
Massachusetts, and occupied there many positions of honor and trust,
serving in the State Legislature both as Representative and Senator. He
was the author of many poems and lyrics of high merit, some of
which--notably "The Vacant Chair"--became popular in sheet-music and in
books of religious and educational use. He died in 1903.
_THE TUNE._
"The Burial of Mrs. Judson" became favorite parlor music when Lyman
Heath composed the melody for it--of the same name. Its notes and
movement were evidently inspired by the poem, for it reproduces the
feeling of every line. The threnody was widely known and sung in the
middle years of the last century, by people, too, who had scarcely heard
of Mrs. Judson, and received in the music and words their first hint of
her history. The poem prompted the tune, but the tune was the garland of
the poem.
Lyman Heath of Bow, N.H., was born there Aug. 24, 1804. He studied
music, and became a vocalist and vocal composer. Died July 30, 1870.
"TELL ME NOT IN MOURNFUL NUMBERS."
Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" was written when he was a young man, and
for some years it carried the title he gave it, "What the Young Man's
Heart Said to the Psalmist"--a caption altogether too long to bear
currency.
The history of the beloved poet who wrote this optimistic ballad of hope
and courage is too well known to need recounting here. He was born in
Portland, Me., in 1807, graduated at Bowdoin College, and was for more
than forty years professor of Belles Lettres in Harvard University. Died
in Cambridge, March 4, 1882. Of his longer poems the most read and
admired are his beautiful romance of "Evangeline," and his epic of
"Hiawatha," but it is hardly too much to say that for the last sixty
years, his "Psalm of Life" has been the common property of all American,
if not English school-children, and a part of their education. When he
was in London, Queen Victoria sent for him to come and see her at the
palace. He went, and just as he was seating himself in the waiting coach
after the interview, a man in working clothes appeared, hat in hand, at
the coach window.
"Please sir, yer honor," said he, "an' are you Mr. Longfellow?"
"I am Mr. Longfellow," said the poet.
"An' did you write the Psalm of Life?" he asked.
"I wrote the Psalm of Life," replied the poet.
"An', yer honor, would you be willing to take a workingman by the hand?"
Mr. Longfellow gave the honest Englishman a hearty handshake, "And"
(said he in telling the story) "I never in my life received a compliment
that gave me more satisfaction."
The incident has a delightful democratic flavor--and it is perfectly
characteristic of the amiable author of the most popular poem in the
English language. The "Psalm of Life" is a wonderful example of the
power of commonplaces put into tuneful and elegant verse.
The thought of setting the poem to music came to the compiler of one of
the Unitarian church singing books. Some will question, however, whether
the selection was the happiest that could have been made. The tune is
"Rathbun," Ithamar Conkey's melody that always recalls Sir John
Bowring's great hymn of praise.
"BUILD THEE MORE NOBLE MANSIONS."
This poem by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, known among his works as "The
Chambered Nautilus," was considered by himself as his worthiest
achievement in verse, and his wish that it might live is likely to be
fulfilled. It is stately, and in character and effect a rhythmic sermon
from a text in "natural theology." The biography of one of the little
molluscan sea-navigators that continually enlarges its shell to adapt it
to its growth inspired the thoughtful lines. The third, fourth and
fifth stanzas are as follows:
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread the lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the last year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step the shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wand'ring sea,
Cast from her lap forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn!
While on my ear it rings
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings,
"Build thee more noble mansions, O my soul.
As the swift seasons roll:
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thy outgrown shell by life's unresting sea."
Dr. Frederic Hedge included the poem in his hymn-book but without any
singing-supplement to the words.
WHITTIER'S SERVICE SONG.
It may not be our lot to wield
The sickle in the harvest field.
If this stanza and the four following do not reveal all the strength of
John G. Whittier's spirit, they convey its serious sweetness. The
verses were loved and prized by both President Garfield and President
McKinley. On the Sunday before the latter went from his Canton, O., home
to his inauguration in Washington the poem was sung as a hymn at his
request in the services at the Methodist church where he had been a
constant worshipper.
The second stanza is the one most generally recognized and oftenest
quoted:
Yet where our duty's task is wrought
In unison with God's great thought,
The near and future blend in one,
And whatsoe'er is willed, is done.
John Greenleaf Whittier, the poet of the oppressed, was born in
Haverhill, Mass., 1807, worked on a farm and on a shoe-bench, and
studied at the local academy, until, becoming of age, he went to
Hartford, Conn., and began a brief experience in editorial life. Soon
after his return to Massachusetts he was elected to the Legislature, and
after his duties ended there he left the state for Philadelphia to edit
the _Pennsylvania Freeman_. A few years later he returned again, and
established his home in Amesbury, the town with which his life and works
are always associated.
He died in 1892 at Hampton Falls, N.H., where he had gone for his
health.
_THE TUNE._
"Abends," the smooth triple-time choral joined to Whittier's poem by the
music editor of the new _Methodist Hymnal_, speaks its meaning so well
that it is scarcely worth while to look for another. Sir Herbert Stanley
Oakeley, the composer, was born at Ealing, Eng., July 22, 1830, and
educated at Rugby and Oxford. He studied music in Germany, and became a
superior organist, winning great applause by his recitals at Edinburgh
University, where he was elected Musical Professor.
Archbishop Tait gave him the doctorate of music at Canterbury in 1871,
and he was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1876.
Besides vocal duets, Scotch melodies and student songs, he composed many
anthems and tunes for the church--notably "Edina" ("Saviour, blessed
Saviour") and "Abends," originally written to Keble's "Sun of my Soul."
"THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN PINION."
This lay of a lost gift, with its striking lesson, might have been
copied from the wounded bird's own song, it is so natural and so
clear-toned. The opportune thought and pen of Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth
gave being to the little ballad the day he heard the late Dr. George
Lorimer preach from a text in the story of Samson's fall (Judges 16:21)
"The Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to
Gaza ... and he did grind in the prison-house." A sentence in the
course of the doctor's sermon, "The bird with a broken pinion never
soars as high again," was caught up by the listening author, and became
the refrain of his impressive song. Rev. Frank M. Lamb, the tuneful
evangelist, found it in print, and wrote a tune to it, and in his voice
and the voices of other singers the little monitor has since told its
story in revival meetings, and mission and gospel services throughout
the land.
I walked through the woodland meadows
Where sweet the thrushes sing,
And found on a bed of mosses
A bird with a broken wing.
I healed its wound, and each morning
It sang its old sweet strain,
But the bird with a broken pinion
Never soared as high again.
I found a young life broken
By sin's seductive art;
And, touched with a Christ-like pity,
I took him to my heart.
He lived--with a noble purpose,
And struggled not in vain;
But the life that sin had stricken
Never soared as high again.
But the bird with a broken pinion
Kept another from the snare,
And the life that sin had stricken
Saved another from despair.
Each loss has its compensation,
There is healing for every pain
But the bird with a broken pinion
Never soars as high again.
In the tune an extra stanza is added--as if something conventional were
needed to make the poem a hymn. But the professional tone of the
appended stanza, virtually all in its two lines--
Then come to the dear Redeemer,
He will cleanse you from every stain,
--is forced into its connection. The poem told the truth, and stopped
there; and should be left to fasten its own impression. There never was
a more solemn warning uttered than in this little apologue. It promises
"compensation" and "healing," but not perfect rehabilitation. Sin will
leave its scars. Even He who "became sin for us" bore them in His
resurrection body.
Rev. Frank M. Lamb, composer and singer of the hymn-tune, was born in
Poland, Me., 1860, and educated in the schools of Poland and Auburn. He
was licensed to preach in 1888, and ordained the same year, and has
since held pastorates in Maine, New York, and Massachusetts.
Besides his tune, very pleasing and appropriate music has been written
to the little ballad of the broken wing by Geo. C. Stebbins.
[Illustration: Ellen M.H. Gates]
UNDER THE PALMS.
In the cantata, "Under the Palms" ("Captive Judah in Babylon")--the
joint production of George F. Root[19] and Hezekiah Butterworth, several
of the latter's songs detached themselves, with their music, from the
main work, and lingered in choral or solo service in places where the
sacred operetta was presented, both in America and England. One of these
is an effective solo in deep contralto, with a suggestion of recitative
and chant--
By the dark Euphrates' stream,
By the Tigris, sad and lone
I wandered, a captive maid;
And the cruel Assyrian said,
"Awake your harp's sweet tone!"
I had heard of my fathers' glory from the lips of holy men,
And I thought of the land of my fathers; I thought of my fathers'
land then.
Another is--
O church of Christ! our blest abode,
Celestial grace is thine.
Thou art the dwelling-place of God,
The gate of joy divine.
Whene'er I come to thee in joy,
Whene'er I come in tears,
Still at the Gate called Beautiful
My risen Lord appears.
--with the chorus--
Where'er for me the sun may set,
Wherever I may dwell,
My heart shall nevermore forget
Thy courts, Immanuel!
[Footnote 19: See page 316.]
"IF YOU CANNOT ON THE OCEAN."
This popular Christian ballad, entitled "Your Mission," was written one
stormy day in the winter of 1861-2 by Miss Ellen M. Huntington (Mrs.
Isaac Gates), and made her reputation as one of the few didactic poets
whose exquisite art wins a hearing for them everywhere. In a moment of
revery, while looking through the window at the falling snow, the words
came to her:
If you cannot on the ocean
Sail among the swiftest fleet.
She turned away and wrote the lines on her slate, following with verse
after verse till she finished the whole poem. "It wrote itself," she
says in her own account of it.
Reading afterwards what she had written, she was surprised at her work.
The poem had a meaning and a "mission." So strong was the impression
that the devout girl fell on her knees and consecrated it to a divine
purpose. Free copies of it went to the Cooperstown, N.Y., local paper,
and to the New York _Examiner_, and appeared in both. From that time the
history and career of "Your Mission" presents a marked illustration of
"catenal influence," or transmitted suggestion.
In the later days of the Civil War Philip Phillips, who had a
wonderfully sweet tenor voice, was invited to sing at a great meeting of
the United States Christian Commission in the Senate Chamber at
Washington, February, 1865, President Lincoln and Secretary Seward
(then president of the commission) were there, and the hall was crowded
with leading statesmen, army generals, and friends of the Union. The
song selected by Mr. Phillips was Mrs. Gates' "Your Mission":
If you cannot on the ocean
Sail among the swiftest fleet,
Rocking on the highest billows,
Laughing at the storms you meet,
You can stand among the sailors
Anchored yet within the bay;
You can lend a hand to help them
As they launch their boats away.
The hushed audience listened spell-bound as the sweet singer went on,
their interest growing to feverish eagerness until the climax was
reached in the fifth stanza:
If you cannot in the conflict
Prove yourself a soldier true,
If where fire and smoke are thickest
There's no work for you to do,
When the battlefield is silent
You can go with careful tread;
You can bear away the wounded,
You can cover up the dead.
In the storm of enthusiasm that followed, President Lincoln handed a
hastily scribbled line on a bit of paper to Chairman Seward,
"Near the close let us have 'Your Mission' repeated."
Mr. Phillips' great success on this occasion brought him so many calls
for his services that he gave up everything and devoted himself to his
tuneful art. "Your Mission" so gladly welcomed at Washington made him
the first gospel songster, chanting round the world the divine message
of the hymns. It was the singing by Philip Phillips that first impressed
Ira D. Sankey with the amazing power of evangelical solo song, and
helped him years later to resign his lucrative business as a revenue
officer and consecrate his own rare vocal gift to the Christian ministry
of sacred music. Heaven alone can show the birth-records of souls won to
God all along the journeys of the "Singing Pilgrims," and the rich
succession of Mr. Sankey's melodies, that can be traced back by a chain
of causes to the poem that "wrote itself" and became a hymn. And the
chain may not yet be complete. In the words of that providential poem--
Though they may forget the singer
They will not forget the song.
Mrs. Ellen M.H. Gates, whose reputation as an author was made by this
beautiful and always timely poem, was born in Torrington, Ct., and is
the youngest sister of the late Collis P. Huntington. Her
hymns--included in this volume and in other publications--are much
admired and loved, both for their sweetness and elevated religious
feeling, and for their poetic quality. Among her published books of
verse are "Night," "At Noontide," and "Treasures of Kurium." Her address
is New York City.
_THE TUNE._
Sidney Martin Grannis, author of the tune, was born Sept. 23, 1827, in
Geneseo, Livingston county, N.Y. Lived in Leroy, of the same state, from
1831 to 1884, when he removed to Los Angeles, Cal., where several of his
admirers presented him a cottage and grounds, which at last accounts he
still occupies. Mr. Grannis won his first reputation as a popular
musician by his song "Do They Miss Me at Home," and his "Only Waiting,"
"Cling to the Union," and "People Will Talk You Know," had an equally
wide currency. As a solo singer his voice was remarkable, covering a
range of two octaves, and while travelling with members of the "Amphion
Troupe," to which he belonged, he sang at more than five thousand
concerts. His tune to "Your Mission" was composed in New Haven, Ct., in
1864.
"TOO LATE! TOO LATE! YE CANNOT ENTER NOW."
"Too Late" is a thrilling fragment or side-song of Alfred Tennyson's,
representing the vain plea of the five Foolish Virgins. Its tune bears
the name of a London lady, "Miss Lindsay" (afterwards Mrs. J.
Worthington Bliss). The arrangement of air, duo and quartet is very
impressive[20].
[Footnote 20: _Methodist Hymnal_, No. 743.]
"Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill:
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still."
"Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!"
"No light! so late! and dark and chill the night--
O let us in that we may find the light!"
"Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!"
* * * * *
"Have we not heard the Bridegroom is so sweet?
O let us in that we may kiss his feet!"
"No, No--! too late! ye cannot enter now!"
The words are found in "Queen Guinevere," a canto of the "Idyls of the
King."
"OH, GALILEE, SWEET GALILEE."
This is the chorus of a charming poem of three stanzas that shaped
itself in the mind of Mr. Robert Morris while sitting over the ruins on
the traditional site of Capernaum by the Lake of Genneseret.
Each cooing dove, each sighing bough,
That makes the eve so blest to me,
Has something far diviner now,
It bears me back to Galilee.
CHORUS
Oh, Galilee, sweet Galilee,
Where Jesus loved so much to be;
Oh, Galilee, blue Galilee,
Come sing thy song again to me.
Robert Morris, LL.D., born Aug. 31, 1818, was a scholar, and an expert
in certain scientific subjects, and wrote works on numismatics and the
"Poetry of Free Masonry." Commissioned to Palestine in 1868 on historic
and archaeological service for the United Order, he explored the scenes
of ancient Jewish and Christian life and event in the Holy Land, and
being a religious man, followed the Saviour's earthly footsteps with a
reverent zeal that left its inspiration with him while he lived. He died
in the year 1888, but his Christian ballad secured him a lasting place
in every devout memory.
_THE TUNE._
The author wrote out his hymn in 1874 and sent it to his friend, the
musician, Mr. Horatio R. Palmer,[21] and the latter learned it by heart,
and carried it with him in his musings "till it floated out in the
melody you know," (to use his own words.)
[Footnote 21: See page 311.]