Twilight A-Stealing

DESCRIPTION: "Twilight a-stealing over the sea, Shadows are falling, dark on the lea, Borne on the night wind, voices of yore Come from the far-off shore." The singer tells of the home beyond the twilight where memories and good things wait
AUTHOR: Words: Aldiine Sillman Kieffer (1840-1904) / Music: B. C. Unseld (1843-1923) (according to _The Song Wave_)
EARLIEST DATE: 1882 (_The Song Wave_); published in 1877, according to McNeil-SouthernMountainFolksong
KEYWORDS: religious home
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Ritchie-SingingFamilyOfTheCumberlands, pp. 30-31, "[Twilight A-Stealing]" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ritchie-FolkSongsOfTheSouthernAppalachians, p. 49, "Twilight A-Stealing" (1 text, 1 tune)
McNeil-SouthernMountainFolksong, pp. 112-113, "Twilight Is Stealing" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: H. S. Perkins, H, J. Danforth, and E. V. DeGraff, _The Song Wave_, American Book Company, 1882, pp. 18-19, "Twilight Is Falling" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #5745
RECORDINGS:
Bobbie Bare, Dianne Ward-Hicks, Derek Piotr, "Twilight is Stealing" (Fragment: Piotr-Archive #146, recorded 04/22/2022, with badly wavering pitch)
Hannah & Tom, Derek Piotr, "Twilight is Stealing" (Piotr-Archive #111, recorded 04/06/2022)
Ritchie Family, "Twilight A-Stealing" (on Ritchie03)
The Stoneman Family, "Twilight Is Stealing over the Sea" (Victor, unissued, 1928)
NOTES [81 words]: According to W. K. McNeil, editor, Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music, Routledge, 2005, p. 407, "Because of his normal school activities, [composer Benjamin Carl] Unseld is widely regarded as having an influence on nearly all rural singing teachers in the South. Of his several songs, the only one that is still well known is 'Twilight Is Stealing.'" (Note that "normal school activities" does not mean "things he usually did in schools" but "things he did in Normal Schools.") - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: JRSF030

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