No. 75 Columbus, Osh 67
Pentatonic, mode 2 (I — 3 IV V — 7)
Oh, once I had a glorious view
Of my redeeming Lord;
He said, I’ll be a God to you,
And I believ’d his word.
But now I have a deeper stroke
Than all my groanings are;
My God has me of late forsook,
He’s gone I know not where.
Oh, what immortal joys I felt
On that celestial day,
When my hard heart began to melt,
By love dissolved away!
But my complaint is bitter now,
For all my joys are gone;
I’ve strayed! I’m left! I know not how;
The light’s from me withdrawn.
Once I could joy the saints to meet,
To me they were most dear;
I then could stoop to wash their feet,
And shed a joyful tear;
But now I meet them as the rest,
And with them joyless stay;
My conversation’s spiritless,
Or else I’ve nought to say.
The words appeared in Mercer’s Cluster, a Georgia hymn and spiritual-song collection of the 1820’s. The earliest appearance of the tune seems to have been in the Southern Harmony (1835). Found also in HH 128, UH 57, KNH 42, HOC 37, SOC 109, GOS 380, PB 343. The tune is a variant of ‘Antioch’, in this collection.
For negro tune derivatives see White Spirituals, 259. Among the tunes in secular environment, ‘Virginian Lover’, Sharp, ii., 149, tune B, shows closest relationship to the above. See also ‘Flat River Girl’, Rickaby, p. 6; and ‘Driving Saw Logs on the Plover’, Rickaby, p. 89.