The Swift Declining Day

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The swift declining day

Author: Philip Doddridge
Published in 124 hymnals

Piano/Organ
	Hymn Harmonizations, Set 5

Representative Text

1 The swift declining day,
How fast its moments fly!
While evening's broad and gloomy shade
Gains on the western sky.

2 Ye mortals, mark its pace,
And use the hours of light;
And know, its Maker can command
At once eternal night.

3 Give glory to the Lord,
Who rules the whirling sphere;
Submissive at his footstool bow,
And seek salvation there.

4 Then shall new lustre break
Through death's impending gloom,
And lead you to unchanging light,
In your celestial home.

Source: Laudes Domini: a selection of spiritual songs, ancient and modern for use in the prayer-meeting #77

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Author: Philip Doddridge

Philip Doddridge (b. London, England, 1702; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 1751) belonged to the Non-conformist Church (not associated with the Church of England). Its members were frequently the focus of discrimination. Offered an education by a rich patron to prepare him for ordination in the Church of England, Doddridge chose instead to remain in the Non-conformist Church. For twenty years he pastored a poor parish in Northampton, where he opened an academy for training Non-conformist ministers and taught most of the subjects himself. Doddridge suffered from tuberculosis, and when Lady Huntington, one of his patrons, offered to finance a trip to Lisbon for his health, he is reputed to have said, "I can as well go to heaven from Lisbon as from Nort… Go to person page >

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First Line:	The swift declining day
Title:	The Swift Declining Day
Author:	Philip Doddridge
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Tune

SCHUMANN (51567)

SCHUMANN is one of many hymn tunes arranged by Lowell Mason (PHH 96). He first published the arrangement in Cantica Laudis (1850), a collection he edited with George J. Webb (PHH 559). First called WHITE, the tune was marked "Arr. from Schumann" and was thus ascribed to the German composer Robert A.…

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BRADEN (Bradbury)

DENNIS (Nägeli)

Lowell Mason (PHH 96) arranged DENNIS and first published it in The Psaltery (1845), a hymnal he compiled with George. Webb (PHH 559). Mason attributed the tune to Johann G. Nageli (b. Wetzikon, near Zurich, Switzerland, 1773; d. Wetzikon, 1836) but included no source reference. Nageli presumably pu…

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