1. My life, as a year, had a bright spring time,
With summer and autumn to come,
And afterward the winter with its dim sunshine,
When springtime and summer had gone,
The spring of my life was the joyful days,
When care had not entered my breast,
When the fields and the woods were the choice of my ways,
And my life was all happiness.
2. It was when I was young and the world to me was new,
The stings and the thorns were not known,
When wiser heads guided in all I had to do,
My heaven was parents and home.
The birds gave me music the flow'rs gave me joy,
And the world was Eden to me,
The skies were my pictures, the earth was my toy,
I was happy as mortal could be.
3. Now I stand poorly clad in the cold winter blast,
'Neath the bare leafless limbs of the tree,
All the gay things are gone, and the summer is past,
There's no comfort in this world for me.
I think of the home where my childhood was spent,
Where the fire on the hearth used to glow,
And of my mother dear who was aged and bent,
She has gone to the grave long ago.
4. My ears heavy grow and my eyesight has failed,
And I am not strong as before,
My body once robust is now growing frail,
My journey on earth is most o'er.
It won't be very long till the Lord calls me home,
I shall meet all my kindred again,
Where death never comes and I no more shall roam,
There all of my troubles shall end.
Source: Soul Echoes: a collection of songs for religious meetings (No. 2) #23
Charles Albert Tindley was born in Berlin, Maryland, July 7, 1851; son of Charles and Hester Tindley. His father was a slave, and his mother was free. Hester died when he was very young; he was taken in my his mother’s sister Caroline Miller Robbins in order to keep his freedom. It seems that he was expected to work to help the family. In his Book of Sermons (1932), he speaks of being “hired out” as a young boy, “wherever father could place me.” He married Daisy Henry when he was seventeen. Together they had eight children, some of whom would later assist him with the publication of his hymns.
Tindley was largely self-taught throughout his lifetime. He learned to read mostly on his own. After he and Daisy moved to Philadelphia… Go to person page >
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