And I had been placed on His knee,
And that I might have seen His kind look when He said,
“Let the little ones come unto me.”
This is not poetry, but it phrases a wish in a child's own way, to be melodized and fixed in a child's reverent and sensitive memory.
Mrs. Luke was born at Colebrook Terrace, near London, Aug. 19, 1813. She was an accomplished and benevolent lady who did much for the education and welfare of the poor. Her hymn—of five stanzas—was first sung in a village school at Poundford Park, and was not published until 1841.
THE TUNE.
It is interesting, not to say curious, testimony to the vital quality of this meek production that so many composers have set it to music, or that successive hymn-book editors have kept it, and printed it to so many different harmonies. All the chorals that carry it have substantially the same movement—for the spondaic accent of the long lines is compulsory—but their offerings sing “to one clear harp in divers tones.”
The appearance of the words in one hymnal with Sir William Davenant's air (full scored) to Moore's love-song, “Believe me, if all those 357 / 307 endearing young charms,” now known as the tune of “Fair Harvard,” is rather startling at first, but the adoption is quite in keeping with the policy of Luther and Wesley.
“St. Kevin” written to it forty years ago by John Henry Cornell, organist of St. Paul's, New York City, is sweet and sympathetic.
The newest church collection (1905) gives the beautiful air and harmony of “Athens” to the hymn, and notes the music as a “Greek Melody.”