O could our thoughts and wishes fly

Top Media Text Author Text Info Tune Timeline Arrangements Page Scans Instances

O could our thoughts and wishes fly

Author: Anne Steele
Published in 165 hymnals

Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	Festival Hymns for Organ, Brass, and Tim…

Choral
	ACCLAMATION ON "AZMON"

Instrumental
	Worship the King

Representative Text

1 O could our thoughts and wishes fly
Above these gloomy shades,
To those bright worlds beyond the sky,
Which sorrow ne'er invades!

2 There joys unseen by mortal eyes,
Or reason's feeble ray,
In ever blooming prospects rise,
Unconscious of decay.

3 Lord, send a beam of light divine,
To guide our upward aim!
With one reviving touch of thine,
Our languid hearts inflame.

4 Then shall, on faith's sublimest wing,
Our ardent wishes rise
To those bright scenes, where pleasures spring
Immortal in the skies.

The Hartford Selection of Hymns from the most approved authors, 1799

All representative texts • Compare texts ^ top

Author: Anne Steele

Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporar… Go to person page >

^ top

First Line:	O could our thoughts and wishes fly
Author:	Anne Steele
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

2 Corinthians 4:18
(hymns)

^ top

Tune

COVENTRY (English)

MARTYRDOM (Wilson)

MARTYRDOM was originally an eighteenth-century Scottish folk melody used for the ballad "Helen of Kirkconnel." Hugh Wilson (b. Fenwick, Ayrshire, Scotland, c. 1766; d. Duntocher, Scotland, 1824) adapted MARTYRDOM into a hymn tune in duple meter around 1800. A triple-meter version of the tune was fir…

Go to tune page >

All tunes published with 'O could our thoughts and wishes fly'^ top