Center and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near!”
Harry Lauder, in Roamin’ in the Gloamin’,[1] refers to it as “that gorgeous bit of poetic imagery,” and adds that Holmes would have been the greatest hymn writer in the world had he only written some more.
The reference to John Wesley recalls an interesting incident:
When Two Hymn-Writers Met
On a fine summer’s day in the first half of the eighteenth century a traveler on horseback, crossing one of the lovely hills of Derbyshire in England, was aroused from his meditations by the voice of singing. Pausing to listen, these words came on the still air from the valley below:
“Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o’er,
Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood,
Should fright us from the shore.”