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O Thou, the first, the greatest friend
Author: Robert Burns Appears in 15 hymnals
O Thou, the first, the greatest friend
O Thou, The First, The Greatest Friend
Author: Robert Burns Hymnal: The Cyber Hymnal #12640 Meter: 8.6.8.6 Lyrics: 1 O Thou, the first, the greatest friend
Of all the human race!
Whose strong right hand has ever been
Their stay and dwelling place!
2 Before the mountains heaved their heads
Beneath Thy forming hand;
Before this ponderous globe itself
Arose at Thy command;
3 That power which raised, and still upholds
This universal frame,
From countless, unbeginning time,
Was ever still the same.
4 Those mighty periods of years,
Which seem to us so vast,
Appear no more before Thy sight,
Than yesterday that’s past.
5 Thou giv’st the word: Thy creature, man,
Is to existence brought;
Again Thou say’st, Ye sons of men,
Return ye into nought!
6 Thou layest them, with all their cares,
In everlasting sleep;
As with a flood Thou tak’st them off
With overwhelming sweep.
7 They flourish like the morning flower,
In beauty’s pride arrayed;
But long ere night cut down it lies
All withered and decayed. Languages: English Tune Title: BURNS
O Thou, The First, The Greatest Friend
O Thou, the first, the greatest friend
Hymnal: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Social and Private Worship #P.XCa (1823) Languages: English
O Thou, the first, the greatest friend
O Thou, the first, the greatest Friend
Author: Robert Burns Hymnal: Plymouth Collection #a821 (1863)
O Thou, the first, the greatest Friend
Robert Burns
1759 - 1796 Person Name: Robert Burns (1759-1796) Author of "O thou, the first, the greatest Friend" in The University Hymn Book Burns, Robert. This poet's life had little in common with hymnology, although some of his pieces, in common with a few of Byron's, have come into use in Great Britain and America. His life, from his birth in the parish of Alloway, near Ayr, Jan. 25, 1759, to his death, at Dumfries, July 21, 1796, was one of varying lights and shadows, and has been told elsewhere, frequently and eloquently. It remains for us only to name his sacred pieces, their origin, and their use. Those in common use are:—
1. O Thou great Being! What Thou art. Lent. Burns's account of this piece as entered in his Common¬place Book, under the date of "March, 1784," is:—
"There was a certain period of my life that my spirit was broken by repeated losses and disasters, which threatened, and indeed effected, the utter ruin of my fortune. My body, too, was attacked by that most dreadful distemper a hypochondria, or confirmed melancholy. In this wretched state, the recollection of which makes me shudder, I hung my harp on the willow-trees, except in some lucid intervals, in one of which I composed the following, 'Oh, Thou Great Being! what Thou art, &c.'" Chambers says in his Life and Works of Burns, 1850 (Library edition, 1856), vol. i.,p. 57, that financial and physical downfall was in 1781, when the poet was 23. At the same time he wrote, "Winter, a Dirge." From the latter the hymn:—
2. Thou Power Supreme, Whose mighty scheme, Trust in God, is taken. The second piece was published in his Poems, Kilmarnock, 1786, and the first in Poems, Edinburgh, 1787. Original text in Chambers's Life, vol. i. pp. 67-58. The title of the first is "A Prayer, written under the pressure of violent anguish."
3. O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause. Death anticipated. This was written at the age of 26, during an illness in the summer of 1784. In his Commonplace Book he calls it, "A Prayer when fainting fits and other alarming symptoms of a pleurisy, or some other danger¬ous disorder which still threatens me, first put nature on the alarm." Under the title “A Prayer in the prospect of death," it was included in his Poems, Kilmarnock, 1786.
4. The [that] man in life wherever placed. Ps. i.
5. O Thou, the first, the greatest Friend. Ps. xix. Chambers (Life, vol. i. pp. 86-87) has given these two Psalm versions to the samedate as No. 3, and attributes them to the same cause. They were published in the Edinburgh edition of his Poems, 1787. Orig. text in Life, &c, vol. i. pp. 86-87.
These hymns were all included in Dr. Maitineau's Hymns, &c, 1840, and are also found in other and later collections both in Great Britain and America.
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
Robert Burns
