Land of Rest, The

DESCRIPTION: "O land of rest, for thee I sigh! When will the moment come When I shall lay my armor by And dwell in peace at home?"
AUTHOR: see NOTES
EARLIEST DATE: 1847 (The Ohio Harmonist)
KEYWORDS: religious home
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MidwestFolklore, Mary O. Eddy, "Twenty Folk Hymns," Volume 3, Number 1 (Spring 1953), p. 43, "Land of Rest C.M." (1 excerpt, 1 tune)
Roud #15088
NOTES [140 words]: This first verse is a real conundrum. It shows up in multiple places:
-- Hymnary.org lists it as the first verse of "O land of rest, for thee I sigh" by Elizabeth Miller, which has only two verses and has a chorus "We'll work till Jesus comes (x3), And we'll be gathered home."
-- George Pullen Jackson, Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America, p. 151, calls it "New Prospect or O Land of Rest"; his version has three verses, no chorus, and is attributed in the Original Sacred Harp to J. S. James
-- Eddy, in Midwest Folklore, says that it is part of a four-verse version from the 1850 edition of The Ohio Harmonist. But the 1847 edition of The Ohio Harmonist, at least, has only the first verse.
I have no way to reconcile all this; presumably the first verse existed somehow, and many people expanded it and added their own tunes. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: MWF3043A

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