Like Comets Through the Sky

Today's well-known and well-loved hymn was sung today in my own church. It's appropriate for Lent based on its first stanza, though it is sung at many other times of year in different churches.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To lay aside his crown for my soul, for my soul,
To lay aside his crown for my soul.

To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing;
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb who is the great I AM;
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing;
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on.

Then friends shall meet again, who have loved, who have loved,
Then friends shall meet again, who have loved;
Then friends shall meet again, in Jesus' presence, when
We'll meet to part no more, who have loved, who have loved,
We'll meet to part no more, who have loved.

Ye winged seraphs, fly! Bear the news, bear the news.
Ye winged seraphs fly! bear the news;
Ye winged seraphs fly! Like comets through the sky,
Fill vast eternity with the news, with the news,
Fill vast eternity with the news!

Anonymous; composite; 19th cent.
Tune: WONDROUS LOVE (6.6.6.3.6.6.6.6.6.3.)
American folk tune; The Southern Harmony, 1840


The earliest appearances of this text were in two different hymnbooks published in 1811, A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs Now in Use, edited by the Reverend Stith Mead, published in Virginia, and Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Original and Selected, edited by the Reverend Starke Dupuy, published in Kentucky. A later edition of the latter book is downloadable here.

The two versions are similar but not identical. Later printings of the hymn over the next fifty years or so also reveal slight variations in the text and the number of stanzas. In this version, the fourth stanza above was added about twenty years ago when I was doing research for our hymnal project. We were always looking to restore "lost" stanzas, and this one had particular significance in our churches at the time (and still today). I still remember the slight shock I felt at finding it, and people at the time assumed that we, the editors, had written it ourselves. Google now tells me that this stanza is apparently adapted from one in a different hymn, Saints Bound for Heaven (Our bondage, it shall end, by and by).

The unusual meter is sometimes called the Captain Kidd meter, named for an English ballad about the pirate captain Robert Kidd, but used in dozens of folk songs, many with similarly repetitive lyrics.

The tune for this hymn, adapted from an earlier folk tune, was first printed in the second edition of William Walker's The Southern Harmony (1840), in three-part harmony (and with only one stanza of the text). There have been many different arrangements of the tune since then, not only in hymnals but also as choral anthems and instrumental pieces.


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