No. 201 Heavenly Port or We’ll Stem the Storm, Osh 378
Pentachordal, cannot be classified (I II III IV V — —)
On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie.
Chorus
We’ll stem the storm, it won’t be long,
The heav’nly port is nigh.
We’ll stem the storm, it won’t be long,
We’ll anchor by and by.
The words, given more fully under ‘Jordan’, are Samuel Stenett’s. The Sacred Harp editors attribute the tune to Elder Edmund Dumas, the Georgia Primitive Baptist preacher, who was at the same time a zealous musician of the fasola variety. A close melodic relative is ‘O How I love Jesus’, REV 456. It will be seen as akin to ‘Merrily we Roll Along’. The tune as adopted by the negroes is found in Dett, p. 189.