Shining Shore, The

DESCRIPTION: "My days are gliding swiftly by, And I, a pilgrim stranger, Would not detain them as they fly," because the singer is "on Jordan's strand" and sees "the shining shore" where friends are passing over. So take courage even in hard times
AUTHOR: Words: David Nelson / Music: George F. Root (source: Root-StoryOfAMusicalLife-GeorgeFRoot)
EARLIEST DATE: 1891 (Root-StoryOfAMusicalLife-GeorgeFRoot)
KEYWORDS: religious river nonballad
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Root-StoryOfAMusicalLife-GeorgeFRoot, p. 256, "The Shining Shore" (1 text, 1 tune)
Heart-Songs, p. 505, "Shining Shore" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #28859
NOTES [284 words]: Root, p. 99, reports that one day, when he was working on material for his singing classes, his "mother, passing through the room, laid a slip from one of her religious newspapers before me, saying, 'George, I think that would be good for music.' I looked, and the poem began, "My days are gliding swiftly by.' A simple melody sang itself along in my mind as I read, and I jotted it down, and went on with my work. That was the origin of 'The Shining Shore.'
Later, when I took up the melody to harmonize it, it seemed so very simple and commonplace that I hesitated about setting other parts to it. But I finally decided that it might be useful to somebody, and completed it, thought it was not printed until some months afterward.... [When it became widely popular,] I tried to see why it should be so, but in vain....
"The newspaper slip containing this hymn which my mother handed me had no author's name attached. It was some years later before I learned that it was the Rev. David Nelson who wrote it."
Root then supplies a brief biography of Nelson (1793-1844) which was sent to him. He was a minister and, after owning a plantation in Missouri, later came out against slavery, and was driven out of Missouri as a result, settling in Illinois.
Root's melody, although the one that became widely known, is not the melody intended for the lyric. According to Julian, p. 794, "[Nelson's] hymn, 'My days are gliding swiftly by' (Death Anticipated), was written in 1835, to be sung to the tune of 'Lord Ullin's Daughter.' It is exceedingly popular." (Popular it may have been, but I find no mention of it in any of my modern hymn references. And Julian doesn't mention any other texts by Nelson.) - RBW
Bibliography

Julian: John Julian, editor, A Dictionary of Hymnology, 1892; second edition 1907 (I use the 1957 Dover edition in two volumes)
Root: George F. Root, The Story of a Musical Life, 1891; I use the 1970(?) Da Capo reprint

Last updated in version 6.0
File: HeSo505

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