The Story of the Hymns and Tunes, page 329 by Theron Brown
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ed are blest?
REFRAIN Where loyal hearts and true Stand ever in the light, All rapture through and through In God's most holy sight.
O Paradise, O Paradise, The world is growing old; Who would not be at rest and free Where love is never cold.
Where loyal hearts and true.
O Paradise, O Paradise, I greatly long to see The special place my dearest Lord, In love prepares for me.
Where loyal hearts and true.
This aspiration, from the ardent soul of the poet has been interpreted in song by the same two musicians, and by Joseph Barnby--all with the title "Paradise." Their similarity of style and near equality of merit have compelled compilers to print at least two of them side by side for the singers' choice. A certain pathos in the strains of Barnby's composition gives it a peculiar charm to many, and in America it is probably the oftenest sung to the words.
Dr. David Breed, speaking of Faber's "unusual" imagination, says, "He got more out of language than any other poet of the English tongue, and used words--even simple words--so that they rendered him a service which no other poet ever secured from them." The above hymns are characteristic to a degree, but the telling simplicity of his style--almost quaint at times--is more marked in "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy," given on p. 234.
[Illustration: Horatius Bonar, D.D.]
"BEYOND THE SMILING AND THE WEEPING."
This song of hope--one of the most strangely tuneful and rune-like of Dr. Bonar's hymn-poems--is less frequently sung owing to the peculiarity of its stanza form. But it scarcely needs a staff of notes--
Beyond the smiling and the weeping I shall be soon; Beyond the waking and the sleeping, Beyond the sowing and the reaping I shall be soon.
REFRAIN Love, rest and home! Sweet hope! Lord, tarry not, but come.
* * * * *
Beyond the parting and the meeting I shall be soon; Beyond the farewell and the greeting, Beyond the pulses' fever-beating I shall be soon. Love, rest