No. 227 Parting Hymn or Joyful or o That Will Be Joyful, Pb 303
Heptatonic ionian, mode 3 A + b (I II III IV V VI VII)
How pleasant thus to dwell below
In fellowship of love!
And tho’ we part ’tis bliss to know
The good shall meet above!
The good shall meet above,
The good shall meet above.
And tho’ we part, ’tis bliss to know
The good shall meet above.
O that will be joyful, joyful, joyful.
O that will be joyful
To meet and part no more;
To meet and part no more,
On Canaan’s happy shore,
And sing the everlasting song
With those who’ve gone before.
James, editor of the 1911 Original Sacred Harp, says that ‘Joyful’ was composed by Rev. Abraham D. Merrell. He was born in New Hampshire 1796 and died in 1878. The first lines of a widely sung parody of this song (or is the above the parody?) are:
The man who has plenty of good peanuts
And giveth his neighbor none,
Shan’t have any of my peanuts
When his peanuts are gone.
Miss Gilchrist informs us as to the relatives of tune and words in England. One parody familiar to her was:
John Wesley had a little ghost,
The color of it was white;
It used to swarm up his bed-post
And frighten him at night.
Another, known to Miss Gilchrist, was ‘Three Little Kittens’, (See JFSS, viii, 86). I also heard this song as a nursery ditty in my early youth in Monson, Maine, in the 1880’s. Compare ‘Judgment Scenes’ in this collection. The tune was used also for the carol ‘Joys Seven’, The Oxford Book of Carols, No. 70.