Far from my heavenly home

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Far from my heavenly home

Author: Henry Francis Lyte (1834)
Tune: LYTE (Wilkes)
Published in 146 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, MusicXML
Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	Hymns of the Faith

Representative Text

1 Far from my heavenly home,
Far from my Father's breast,
Fainting I cry, Blest Spirit, come,
And speed me to my rest.

2 My spirit homeward turns,
And fain would thither flee:
My heart, O Sion, droops and yearns,
When I remember thee.

3 To thee, to thee I press,
A dark and toilsome road:
When shall I pass the wilderness,
And reach the saints' abode?

4 God of my life, be near;
On Thee my hopes I cast:
O guide me through the desert here,
And bring me home at last.

Hymnal: according to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1871

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Author: Henry Francis Lyte

Lyte, Henry Francis, M.A., son of Captain Thomas Lyte, was born at Ednam, near Kelso, June 1, 1793, and educated at Portora (the Royal School of Enniskillen), and at Trinity College, Dublin, of which he was a Scholar, and where he graduated in 1814. During his University course he distinguished himself by gaining the English prize poem on three occasions. At one time he had intended studying Medicine; but this he abandoned for Theology, and took Holy Orders in 1815, his first curacy being in the neighbourhood of Wexford. In 1817, he removed to Marazion, in Cornwall. There, in 1818, he underwent a great spiritual change, which shaped and influenced the whole of his after life, the immediate cause being the illness and death of a brother cler… Go to person page >

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First Line:	Far from my heavenly home
Author:	Henry Francis Lyte (1834)
Meter:	6.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Psalm 137
(hymns)

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Notes

Far from my [our] heavenly home. H. F. Lyte. [Psalms cxxxvii.] This S. M. version of Psalms 137 is the most complete example of the author's method in paraphrasing the Psalms that we have: and furnishes us with a beautiful illustration of his tenderness and melody. It appeared in his Spirit of the Psalms, 1834, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines. Its use exceeds that of any other of his Psalm versions, and is extensive both in Great Britain and America. Sometimes it is changed to "Far from our heavenly home;" and in other cases, as in Hymns Ancient & Modern, stanza ii., which reads :—