I Walk the Unfrequented Road

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I walk the unfrequented road

Author: Frederick L. Hosmer
Tune: MORNING SONG (Dare)
Published in 3 hymnals

Piano/Organ
	He Leadeth Me (A budget-stretching resou…

Representative Text

1 I walk the unfrequented road
with open eye and ear;
I watch afield the farmer load
the bounty of the year.

2 I filch the fruit of no one’s toil —
no trespasser am I —
and yet I reap from every soil
and from the boundless sky.

3 I gather where I did not sow,
and bend the mystic sheaf,
the amber air, the river’s flow,
the rustle of the leaf.

4 A beauty springtime never knew
haunts all the quiet ways,
and sweeter shines the landscape through
its veil of autumn haze.

5 I face the hills, the streams, the wood,
and feel with all akin;
my heart expands; their fortitude
and peace and joy flow in.

Source: Singing the Living Tradition #53

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Author: Frederick L. Hosmer

Hosmer, Frederick Lucian, B.A., was born at Framingham, Mass., in 1840, and educated at Harvard, where he graduated B.A. in 1869. Entering the Unitarian Ministry in 1872 he has held charges in Quincy, Ill., 1872-77; Cleveland, Ohio, 1878-92; St. Louis, 1894-99; and since 1899, at Berkeley, Cal. His Way of Life, 1877, was a compilation of Prayers and Responsive Services for Sunday Schools. Of Unity Hymns and Carols, 1880, he was joint editor with W. C. Gannett and J. V. Blake. His hymns were published jointly by him and W. C. Gannett (q.v.), as The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.), 1st Series, 1885; 2nd Series, 1894. Of his 56 hymns in this work the following have come into common use, for the most part during… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	I walk the unfrequented road
Title:	I Walk the Unfrequented Road
Author:	Frederick L. Hosmer
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Tune

MORNING SONG (Dare)

MORNING SONG is a folk tune that has some resemblance to the traditional English tune for "Old King Cole." The tune appeared anonymously in Part II of John Wyeth's (PHH 486) Repository of Sacred Music (1813). In 1816 it was credited to "Mr. Dean," which some scholars believe was a misprinted referen…

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