No. 81 Land of Rest, Ol 117
Pentatonic, mode 3 (I II III — V VI —)
There is a land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign,
Infinite day excludes the night
And pleasures banish pain.
O the land of rest, O the land of rest,
Where Christ and His people meet;
The land of the blest, all in beauty drest,
Where the saints all their lov’d ones greet.
“Inspiration of this tune,” says the compiler of the Olive Leaf, “caught from a female voice at a distance, at Barbee Hotel, High Point, N. C., June 9th, 1868.” The mountain woman must have been singing ‘Lord Lovel’; for the tunes of that ballad, as found for example in Davis, p. 574, O; and Sharp, i., 148, are practically the same as ‘Land of Rest’. See Introduction, page 14.