Soon I’ll cross the swelling tide.

O hallelujah etc.

See the happy spirits waiting,

On the banks beyond the stream!

Sweet responses still repeating,

“Jesus! Jesus!” is their theme.

O hallelujah etc.

William Hauser, compiler of the Olive Leaf, informs us that “this tune [is] called after Rev. John H. Watson, whom, in my youth [in the 1820’s], I used to hear sing [it]”. It is a variant of the beautiful traditional secular ballad ‘The Poor Little Fisherman Girl’ or ‘Green Willow’.

No. 91
[CROSS OF CHRIST], GOS 504

Heptatonic aeolian, mode 2 A + b (I II 3 IV V 6 7)