For ever with the Lord. J. Montgomery. [Heaven anticipated.] First published in The Amethyst, an annual, in 1835, and again in the author's Poet’s Portfolio, in the same year, p. 233, in 22 stanzas of 4 lines, unequally divided into two parts, and headed, "At Home in Heaven, 1 Thess. iv. 17." It was repeated in his Poetical Works, 1841, p. 267; and in his Original Hymns, 1853, p. 231. In this last the second stanza of pt. ii. is omitted. Numerous centos from this hymn are in common use, all except four beginning with stanza i., but varying in length and arrangement. In America especially these centos have attained great popularity. The cento "Beneath the star-lit arch," in Beecher's Plymouth Collection, 1855, is composed of stanzas vii., xii., xiii. and xxi. slightly altered. In Martineau's Hymns, &c, 1840 and 1873, there are also two centos from this hymn: (1) “In darkness as in light"; and (2) "My Father's house on high," and in the Presbyterian Psalms & Hymns for the Worship of God, Richmond, U.S.A., 1867, a third, (3) “My thirsty spirit faints."
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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