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If I had the eyes of Heaven

Translator: Frances Bevan (1899)
Published in 1 hymnal

Representative Text

If I had the eyes of Heaven,
That could all things see,
Oh what glorious surprises
All around would be!
I should see all still and stately
God’s white Angels tread,
Watch me with their eyes of glory,
Sit beside my bed.
When I take the broth to Granny
In her garret mean,
I should see them wait around her,
As around a Queen.
Through the snow in dusky twilight,
When the winds are wild,
See them speed where lost and lonely
Strays a little child.
Through the stillness of the noonday
See them swiftly rise,
Bearing one with face uplighted
Far into the skies.
Meet them in the lonely places,
In the busy street,
Ever calm as skies of summer,
Ever strong and fleet.
Glad and tender in their service,
For God’s love they know
To the smallest and the meanest
Of His own below.

Source: Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series) #135

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Translator: Frances Bevan

Bevan, Emma Frances, née Shuttleworth, daughter of the Rev. Philip Nicholas Shuttleworth, Warden of New Coll., Oxford, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, was born at Oxford, Sept. 25, 1827, and was married to Mr. R. C. L. Bevan, of the Lombard Street banking firm, in 1856. Mrs. Bevan published in 1858 a series of translations from the German as Songs of Eternal Life (Lond., Hamilton, Adams, & Co.), in a volume which, from its unusual size and comparative costliness, has received less attention than it deserves, for the trs. are decidedly above the average in merit. A number have come into common use, but almost always without her name, the best known being those noted under “O Gott, O Geist, O Licht dea Lebens," and "Jedes Herz will etwas… Go to person page >

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