No track is on the sunny sky

Representative Text

1 No track is on the sunny sky,
No footprints on the air:
Jesus hath gone; the face of earth
Is desolate and bare.

2 That upper room is heaven on earth;
Within its precincts lie
All that earth has of faith or hope
Or heaven-born charity.

3 One moment--and the silentness
Was breathless as the grave:
The fluttered earth forgot to quake,
The troubled trees to wave.

4 He comes! he comes! that mighty breath
From heaven's eternal shores;
His uncreated freshness fills
His Bride, as she adores.

5 Earth quakes before that rushing blast,
Heaven echoes back the sound,
And mightily the tempest wheels
That upper room around.

6 One moment--and the Spirit hung
O'er all with dread desire;
Then broke upon the heads of all
In cloven tongues of fire!


Source: The Voice of Praise: a collection of hymns for the use of the Methodist Church #275

Author: Frederick W. Faber

Raised in the Church of England, Frederick W. Faber (b. Calverly, Yorkshire, England, 1814; d. Kensington, London, England, 1863) came from a Huguenot and strict Calvinistic family background. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and ordained in the Church of England in 1839. Influenced by the teaching of John Henry Newman, Faber followed Newman into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845 and served under Newman's supervision in the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Because he believed that Roman Catholics should sing hymns like those written by John Newton, Charles Wesley, and William Cowpe, Faber wrote 150 hymns himself. One of his best known, "Faith of Our Fathers," originally had these words in its third stanza: "Faith of Our Fathers! Mary'… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: No track is on the sunny sky
Author: Frederick W. Faber
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

No track is on the sunny sky. F. W. Faber. [Whitsuntide.] Appeared in his Jesus and Mary, &c, 1849, in 18 stanzas of 4 lines, on "The Mission of the Holy Ghost." From it three centos have come into common use: (1) "No track is on the sunny sky; " (2) "The Mother prays her mighty prayer;" and (3) "The Mother sits all worshipful." In these various forms its use is somewhat extensive.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Tune

ST. AGNES (Dykes)

John B. Dykes (PHH 147) composed ST. AGNES for [Jesus the Very Thought of Thee]. Dykes named the tune after a young Roman Christian woman who was martyred in A.D. 304 during the reign of Diocletian. St. Agnes was sentenced to death for refusing to marry a nobleman to whom she said, "I am already eng…

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CAMBRIDGE (Randall)


OAKSVILLE


Timeline

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The Cyber Hymnal #11750
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The Cyber Hymnal #11750

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