The Cyber Hymnal ‎#3075

3075. Is Your Lamp Burning?

1. Say, is your lamp burning, my brother?
I pray you look quickly and see;
For if it were burning, then surely
Some beam would fall brightly on me.
There are many and many around you
Who follow wherever you go;
If you thought that they walked in the shadow,
Your lamp would burn brighter, I know.

Refrain
Say, is your lamp burning, my brother?
I pray you look quickly and see;
For if it were burning, then surely
Some beam would fall brightly on me!

2. Upon the dark mountains they stumble,
They are bruised on the rocks, and they lie
With tear-filled eyes turned pleading upward,
To the clouds and the pitiful sky.
There is many a lamp that is lighted—
We behold them a-near and afar;
But not many among them, my brother,
Shine steadily on like a star. [Refrain]

3. If once all the lamps that are lighted
Should steadily blaze in a line,
Wide over the land and the ocean,
What a girdle of glory would shine!
How all the dark places would brighten!
How the mists would roll up and away!
How the earth would laugh out in her gladness,
To hail the millennial day! [Refrain]

Text Information

• First Line: Say, is your lamp burning, my brother?
• Title: Is Your Lamp Burning?
• Author: Ellen Marie Huntington Gates (1881)
• Refrain First Line: Say, is your lamp burning, my brother?
• Language: English
• Source: Gospel Hymns No. 4, by Ira D. Sankey et al. (New York: Biglow & Main, 1881), alt.
• Copyright: Public Domain

Tune Information

• Name: [Say, is your lamp burning, my brother?]
• Composer: C. C. Williams
• Incipit: 53211 76515 54322
• Key: G Major
• Copyright: Public Domain