No Longer Forward Nor Behind

Top Text Author Text Info Tune Timeline Arrangements Page Scans Instances

No longer forward or behind

Author: John Greenleaf Whittier
Published in 11 hymnals

Piano/Organ
	The Lord Is My Shepherd - Six Hymn Setti…

Handbells
	Ring for Joy! (Easy Reproducible Hymn Me…

PowerPoint
	HOW SWEET THE NAME OF JESUS SOUND (Blue…

Representative Text

1 No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
but, grateful, take the good I find,
the best of now and here.
I break my pilgrim staff,
I lay aside the toiling oar;
the angel sought so far away
I welcome at my door.

2 For all the jarring notes of life
seem blending in a psalm,
and all the angles of its strife
slow rounding into calm.
And so the shadows fall apart,
and so the west winds play;
and all the windows of my heart
I open to the day.

Source: Singing the Living Tradition #9

All representative texts • Compare texts ^ top

Author: John Greenleaf Whittier

Whittier, John Greenleaf, the American Quaker poet, was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, Dec. 17, 1807. He began life as a farm-boy and shoemaker, and subsequently became a successful journalist, editor and poet. In 1828 he became editor of the American Manufacturer (Boston), in 1830 of the New England Review, and an 1836 (on becoming Secretary to the American Anti-Slavery Society) of the Pennsylvania Freeman. He was also for some time, beginning with 1847, the corresponding editor of the National Era. In 1840 he removed to Amesbury, Massachusetts, where most of his later works have been written. At the present time [1890] he lives alternately at Amesbury and Boston. His first poetical piece was printed in the Newburyport Free Press in 182… Go to person page >

^ top

Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	No longer forward or behind
Title:	No Longer Forward Nor Behind
Author:	John Greenleaf Whittier
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

^ top

Tune

ST. PETER (Reinagle)

Composed by Alexander R. Reinagle (b. Brighton, Sussex, England, 1799; d. Kidlington, Oxfordshire, England, 1877), ST. PETER was published as a setting for Psalm 118 in Reinagle's Psalm Tunes for the Voice and Pianoforte (c. 1836). The tune first appeared with Newton's text in Hymns Ancient and Mode…

Go to tune page >

EVAN (Havergal)

This tune [EVAN], "the popularity of which in Scotland, America, and the Colonies is quite unprecedented" (Tonic Sol Fa Reporter, May 15, 1870), consists of the 1st, 2nd, 7th, and 8th strains of "O Thou dread Power" a sacred song by the Rev. W.H. Havergal, the melody being unaltered. EVAN II is the…

Go to tune page >

ST. MAGNUS (Clarke)

ST. MAGNUS first appeared in Henry Playford's Divine Companion (1707 ed.) as an anonymous tune with soprano and bass parts. The tune was later credited to Jeremiah Clark (b. London, England, c. 1670; d. London, 1707), who was a chorister in the Chapel Royal and sang at the coronation of James II in…

Go to tune page >

All tunes published with 'No Longer Forward Nor Behind'^ top