totally destroying the rhyme. I instantly saw that the fifth line should read,
‘The morning’s dawn, the shades of eve,’
but whether this enormous blunder was committed by the copyist or the pressman I am left to conjecture.”
After Adams’ death his verses, both religious and secular, were published in a small volume entitled Poems of Religion and Society, New York, 1848, which ran to a fourth edition in 1854. This collection included the five hymns and 17 metrical Psalms printed in The Christian Psalmist, unchanged except that the opening line of each psalm has been substituted for the number of the psalm as its heading. Nor was the misprint which Adams lamented amended. Judged by the conventional standards of his time Adams’ poetry was consistently respectable verse, but without any notable distinction other than that lent to it by the fame of the author.
His five hymns are,
1. Sure to the mansions of the blest, (Death of Children)
This is part of a piece of 20 stanzas, which appeared in the Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, January 1807. It is entitled “Lines addressed to a mother on the death of two infants, 19th Sept. 1803, and 19th Decb. 1806.”
2. Alas! how swift the moments fly, (The Hour-Glass)
Sometimes given as
How swift, alas, the moments fly,
written for the 200th anniversary of the First Parish Church in Quincy, September 20, 1839.
3. Hark! ’tis the holy temple bell, (Sabbath morning) undated
4. When, o’er the billow-heaving deep,
“A Hymn for the twenty-second of December,” i.e., the coming of the Pilgrim Fathers, undated.
5. Lord of all worlds, let thanks and praise,
“Written in Sickness;” undated.
His metrical versions of the Psalms follow:—
6. Blest is the mortal whose delight, Ps. 1
7. Come let us sing unto the Lord, Ps. 95
8. For thee in Zion there is praise, Ps. 65
9. My Shepherd is the Lord on high, Ps. 23
10. My soul, before thy Maker kneel, Ps. 103
11. O, all ye people, clap your hands, Ps. 47
12. O God, with goodness all thine own, Ps. 67
13. O heal me, Lord, for I am weak, Ps. 6
14. O, judge me, Lord, for thou art just, Ps. 26
15. O Lord my God! how great thou art, Ps. 104
16. O Lord, thy all-discerning eyes, Ps. 139
17. O that the race of men would raise, Ps. 107
18. Send forth, O God, thy truth and light, Ps. 43
19. Sing to Jehovah a new song, Ps. 98
20. Sing to the Lord a song of praise, Ps. 149
21. Turn to the stars of heaven thine eyes, Ps. 19
22. Why should I fear in evil days, Ps. 49
A few of these hymns and psalms found their way into other collections. Nos. 2 and 3 were included in Lyra Sacra Americana; no. 18 is in Hymnal for American Youth and the American Student Hymnal; no. 16 is in the Jewish Union Hymnal for Worship, 1914.
J. 16, 1647 H.W.F.