Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing. [Close of Service.] This hymn is by the Rev. H. J. Buckoll, sometime Assistant Master in Rugby School; and it appeared in the Psalms & Hymns for the Use of Rugby School Chapel, 1850, No. 56, and appointed "For the last Sunday of the Half-Year." It had a companion hymn by Buckoll "For the first Sunday of the Half-Year" (No. 55), the opening stanza of which reads:—
"Lord, behold us with Thy blessing,
Once again assembled here;
Onward be our footsteps pressing,
In Thy love, and faith, and fear!
Still protect us
By Thy presence ever near! "
These hymns have been repeated in most of the modern Public School hymnbooks.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)