O Day of Light and Gladness

Representative Text

1 O day of light and gladness,
of prophecy and song,
what thoughts within us waken,
what hallowed mem'ries throng!
The soul’s horizon widens,
past, present, future blend;
and rises on our vision
the life that has no end.

2 Earth feels the season’s joyance;
from mountain range to sea
the tides of life are flowing
fresh, manifold and free.
In valley and on upland,
by forest pathways dim,
all nature lifts in chorus
the resurrection hymn.

3 O Dawn of life eternal,
to thee our hearts upraise
the Easter song of gladness,
the Passover of praise.
Thine are the many mansions,
the dead die not to thee,
who fillest from thy fullness
time and eternity.

Source: Singing the Living Tradition #270

Author: Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Hosmer, Frederick Lucian, B.A., was born at Framingham, Mass., in 1840, and educated at Harvard, where he graduated B.A. in 1869. Entering the Unitarian Ministry in 1872 he has held charges in Quincy, Ill., 1872-77; Cleveland, Ohio, 1878-92; St. Louis, 1894-99; and since 1899, at Berkeley, Cal. His Way of Life, 1877, was a compilation of Prayers and Responsive Services for Sunday Schools. Of Unity Hymns and Carols, 1880, he was joint editor with W. C. Gannett and J. V. Blake. His hymns were published jointly by him and W. C. Gannett (q.v.), as The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.), 1st Series, 1885; 2nd Series, 1894. Of his 56 hymns in this work the following have come into common use, for the most part during… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: O day of light and gladness, Of prophecy and song
Title: O Day of Light and Gladness
Author: Frederick Lucian Hosmer (1903)
Meter: 7.6.7.6 D
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Tune

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.”…

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ELLACOMBE

Published in a chapel hymnal for the Duke of Würtemberg (Gesangbuch der Herzogl, 1784), ELLACOMBE (the name of a village in Devonshire, England) was first set to the words "Ave Maria, klarer und lichter Morgenstern." During the first half of the nineteenth century various German hymnals altered the…

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Timeline

Media

The Cyber Hymnal #4777
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Instances

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The Cyber Hymnal #4777

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Singing the Living Tradition #270

Include 15 pre-1979 instances
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