O Fair the Gleams of Glory

Representative Text

1 Oh, fair the gleams of glory,
And bright the scenes of mirth,
That lighten human story
And cheer, this weary earth;
But richer far our treasure
With whom the Spirit dwells,
Ours, ours in heavenly measure
The glory that excels.

2 The lamplight faintly gleaneth
Where shines the noonday ray;
From Jesus' face there beameth
Light of a sevenfold day;
And earth's pale lights, all faded,
The Light from heaven dispels;
But shines for aye unshaded
The glory that excels.

3 No broken cisterns need they
Who drink from living rills;
No other music heed they
Whom God's own music thrills.
Earth's precious things are tasteless,
Its boisterous mirth repels,
Where flows in measure wasteless
The glory that excels.

4 Since on our life descended
Those beams of light and love,
Our steps have heavenward tended,
Our eyes have looked above,
Till through the clouds concealing
The home where glory dwells,
Our Jesus comes revealing
The glory that excels.

Source: Laudes Domini: a selection of spiritual songs, ancient and modern for use in the prayer-meeting #560

Author: Charles I. Cameron

Born: 1837, Kil­mall­ie (near Fort Will­iam), Scot­land. Died: March 3, 1879, New Ed­in­burgh, Ot­ta­wa, On­tar­io, Ca­na­da. Buried: Ca­tar­a­qui Cem­e­tery, Kings­ton, On­ta­rio, Ca­na­da. Emigrating to Ca­na­da in 1858, Cam­er­on at­tend­ed Queen’s Coll­ege, Kings­ton, where he grad­u­at­ed, then stu­died for three years at the The­o­lo­gi­cal Hall and in Glas­gow. Or­dained in 1865, he went to In­dia as a miss­ion­ary for the Church of Scot­land, but lat­er was com­pelled to leave due to ill health. He tried to work in Aus­tral­ia for a time, but re­turned to Ca­na­da in 1875 and took charge of a con­gre­ga­tion at New Edin­burgh, in the Pres­by­te­ry of Ot­ta­wa. In a b… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: O fair the gleams of glory
Title: O Fair the Gleams of Glory
Author: Charles I. Cameron
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Tune

MIRIAM (Holbrook)


LANCASHIRE (Smart)

Henry T. Smart (PHH 233) composed the tune in 1835 for use at a missions festival at Blackburn, Lancashire, England. For that festival, which celebrated the three-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation in England, the tune was set to Reginald Heber's (PHH 249) “From Greenland's Icy Mountains.”…

Go to tune page >


Timeline

Media

The Cyber Hymnal #4957
  • Adobe Acrobat image (PDF)
  • Noteworthy Composer score (NWC)
  • XML score (XML)

Instances

Instances (1 - 1 of 1)
TextScoreAudio

The Cyber Hymnal #4957

Include 11 pre-1979 instances
Suggestions or corrections? Contact us