Tell me not, in mournful numbers

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Tell me not, in mournful numbers

Author: Henry W. Longfellow
Published in 68 hymnals

Piano/Organ
	Near the Cross (Holy Week Reflections fo…

Choral
	O Sanctissima/ O How Joyfully

Instrumental
	JOY TO THE WORLD

Representative Text

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end and way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us further than to-day.

Lives of true men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints which perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Source: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (15th ed.) #310

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Author: Henry W. Longfellow

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth , D.C.L. was born at Portland, Maine, Feb. 27, 1807, and graduated at Bowdoin College, 1825. After residing in Europe for four years to qualify for the Chair of Modern Languages in that College, he entered upon the duties of the same. In 1835 he removed to Harvard, on his election as Professor of Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres. He retained that Professorship to 1854. His literary reputation is great, and his writings are numerous and well known. His poems, many of which are as household words in all English-speaking countries, display much learning and great poetic power. A few of these poems and portions of others have come into common use as hymns, but a hymn-writer in the strict sense of that term he… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Tell me not, in mournful numbers
Author:	Henry W. Longfellow
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

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Tell me not in mournful numbers

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Tune

RATHBUN

This story is associated with the writing of RATHBUN: One Sunday in 1849 Ithamar Conkey (b. Shutesbury, MA, 1815; d. Elizabeth, NJ, 1867) walked out of the morning service at Central Baptist Church, Norwich, Connecticut, where he was choir director and organist, frustrated because only one soprano f…

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SICILIAN MARINERS

SICILIAN MARINERS is traditionally used for the Roman Catholic Marian hymn "O Sanctissima." According to tradition, Sicilian seamen ended each day on their ships by singing this hymn in unison. The tune probably traveled from Italy to Germany to England, where The European Magazine and London Review…

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Timeline

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Arrangements

Store

Piano/Organ Near the Cross (Holy Week Reflections for Organ) CONCERT PIANO SOLOS Toccata on In the Cross of Christ I Glory More Piano/Organ...
Choral O Sanctissima/ O How Joyfully More Choral...
Handbells The Cross, The Grave, The Skies! (Reproducible Handbell Settings of Classic Hymn Tunes for Lent and Easter) In the Shadow of His Cross The Cross, The Grave, The Skies! (Reproducible Handbell Settings of Classic Hymn Tunes for Lent and Easter) More Handbells...
PowerPoint GRANT US, LORD, THE GIFT OF GIVING (Praise! Our Songs and Hymns 432) More PowerPoint...