No. 197 Had I Wings or Ecstacy, Osh 106
Pentatonic, mode 2 (I — 3 IV V — 7)
O when shall I see Jesus,
And reign with Him above,
And from the flowing fountain
Drink everlasting love?
O had I wings, I would fly away and be at rest,
And I’d praise God in his bright abode.
Further stanzas of the John Leland text are given under ‘Faithful Soldier’. The tune seems, according to the note in the Sacred Harp, to have been first recorded by T. W. Carter of Georgia in the 1840’s. The tune of the chorus is essentially the same as in ‘Heaven-Born Soldiers’; in the negro tune ‘Every Hour in the Day’, SS p. 58; the negro tune ‘O Daniel’, SS p. 94; ‘William and Polly’, Sharp, ii., 141; ‘Rebel Soldier’, Sharp, ii., 212-215; and Petrie, Nos. 1191 and 1290.