I Sojourn In a Vale of Tears

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I sojourn in a vale of tears

Author: John Mason
Tune: KINGSFOLD
Published in 29 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, Noteworthy Composer
Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1 I sojourn in a vale of tears,
Alas how can I sing!
My harp doth on the willows hand,
Distun'd in ev'ry string.

2 My music is a captive's chains;
Harsh sounds my ears to fill;
How shall I sing sweet Zion's songs,
On this side Zion's hill?

3 Yet lo! I hear the joyful sound,
Surely I'll quickly come!
Each word much sweetness doth distil,
Like a full honey comb.

4 And dost thou come my dearest Lord?
And dost thou surely come?
And dost thou surely quickly come?
Methinks I am at home.

5 Come then my dearest, dearest Lord,
My sweetest surest friend;
Come, for I loath these Kedar tents!
The fiery chariot send.

6 What have I in this barren land?
My Jesus is not here;
Mine eyes will ne'er be blest until
My Jesus doth appear.

7 My Jesus is gone up to heav'n
To get a place for me;
For 'tis his will, that where he is
There should his servants be.

8 Canaan I view from Pisgah's top,
Of Canaan's grapes I taste;
My Lord who sends unto me here,
Will send for me at last.

9 I have a God that changeth not,
Why should I be perplext?
My God that owns me in this world
Will own me in the next.

10 My dearest friends they dwell above;
Them I will go to see:
And all my friends in Christ below
Will soon come after me.

Source: Divine Hymns or Spiritual Songs, for the use of religious assemblies and private Christians: being a collection #CXLVI

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Author: John Mason

Mason, John. The known facts of his life are scanty. He was the son of a Dissenting Minister, and the grandfather of John Mason, the author of A Treatise on Self-Knowledge. He was educated at Strixton School, Northants, and Clare Hall, Cambridge. After taking his M.A., he became Curate of Isham; and in 1668, Vicar of Stantonbury, Bucks. A little more than five years afterwards he was appointed Rector of Water-Stratford. Here he composed the volume containing The Songs of Praise, his paraphrase of The Song of Solomon, and the Poem on Dives and Lazarus, with which Shepherd's Penitential Cries was afterwards bound up. This volume passed through twenty editions. Besides the Songs of Praise, it contains six Penitential Cries by Mason, and it i… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	I sojourn in a vale of tears
Title:	I Sojourn In a Vale of Tears
Author:	John Mason
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

I sojourn in a vale of tears. J. Mason. [Hope.] First published in his Songs of Praise, &c, 1683, No. 30, in 9 stanzas of 8 lines, as the "Song of Praise for the Hope of Glory," and repeated in D. Sedgwick's reprint, 1859, p. 46. From it three centos are in common use:--
1. I sojourn in a vale of tears. In use in America specially.
2. And dost Thou come, 0 blessed Lord. In Bickersteth's Christian Psalmist, 1833, No. 535, and others.
3. My Saviour is gone up to heaven.
In Bickersteth, 1833, No. 536. and others. The text of all these centos is slightly altered from the original.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Tune

KINGSFOLD

Thought by some scholars to date back to the Middle Ages, KINGSFOLD is a folk tune set to a variety of texts in England and Ireland. The tune was published in English Country Songs [sic: English County Songs] (1893), an anthology compiled by Lucy E. Broadwood and J. A. Fuller Maitland. After having…

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