R. Cecil › Tunes

Cecil, Richard, M.A., born in London, Nov. 8, 1748, and educated at Queen's Coll., Oxford. Ordained deacon in 1776, and priest in 1777. He became the Vicar of two churches near Lewes shortly after; chaplain of St. John's Chapel, Bedford Row, London, 1780; and Vicar of Chobham and Bisley, 1800. He died in 1810. His poem:—
Cease here longer to detain me. Desiring Heaven. In 9 stanzas of 4 lines, is supposed to be addressed by a dying infant to his mother. It was written for his wife on the death of a child “only one month old, being removed at daybreak, whose countenance at the time of departure was most heavenly." It was first published in Mrs. Cecil's Memoir of him, prefixed to his Remains, 1811, and is headed “Let me go, for the day breaketh." In the American hymn-books it is usually abbreviated, as in the Plymouth Collection, 1855, and others. [William T. Brooke]

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)