And then go home my crown to wear,
For there's a crown for me.
* * * * * *
O precious cross! O glorious crown!
O Resurrection Day!
Ye angels from the stars flash down
And bear my soul away!
The hymn is a personal New Testament. No one who analyzes it and feels its Christian vitality will wonder why it has lived so long.
THE TUNE.
For half a century George N. Allen, composer of “Maitland,” the music inseparable from the hymn, was credited with the authorship of the words also, but his vocal aid to the heart-stirring poem earned him sufficient praise. The tune did not meet the hymn till the latter was so old that the real author was mostly forgotten, for Allen wrote the music in 1849; but if the fine stanzas needed any renewing it was his tune that made them new. Since it was published nobody has wanted another.