Horatius Bonar 1860
Ira Sankey 1891
Bonar was a Scottish pastor in Leith, and wrote many hymns. He wrote the poem that became this song as the ten-stanza “Everlasting Memorial”. Sankey was an American hymn singer who worked with preacher Dwight Moody, and adapted three of Bonar’s stanzas to music after meeting Bonar on a tour. John Tams wrote 3 new verses for multiple plays. Will Quale writes “Though the source of the song was Bonar and Sankey, without Tams’s secular adaptations (and Coope, Boyes & Simpson’s performances and recordings of Tams’s adaptations), it would likely never have become the popular folk anthem it is today.” Tams wrote “I trawled obsessively, the Moody and Sankey hymnbook seeking songs and anthems that might otherwise be overlooked. Right or wrong I edited out many of the “Godly” references and made new verses… I wasn’t trying to de-Christianise them, just to reappraise them, put them back to be sung out loud by anyone who took something from them, Christians and Non-Christians alike.” Orange below are Sankey’s verses, purple are Tams’. Coope, Boyes, and Simpson: Coope, Boyes and Simpson at the Ram – ‘Only Remembered’
http://www.towncommonsongs.org/notes/onlyrememberednotes.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQvV4lOdOnQ
Fading away like the stars of the morning, (Up and away, like the dew of the morning) — Losing their light in the glorious sun- (Soaring from earth to its home in the sun,) Thus would we pass from the earth and its toiling, (So let me steal away, gently and lovingly,) Only remembered by what we have done. My name and my place and my tomb, all forgotten, The brief race of time well and patiently run, So let me pass away, peacefully, silently, Only remembered by what I have done. Gladly away from this toil would I hasten, Up to the crown that for me has been won ; Unthought of by man in rewards or in praises,– Only remembered by what I have done. Up and away, like the odors of sunset, That sweeten the twilight as darkness comes on,– So be my life,–a thing felt but not noticed, And I but remembered by what I have done. Yes, like the fragrance that wanders in freshness, When the flowers that it came from are closed up and gone,– So would I be to this world’s weary dwellers, Only remembered by what I have done. Needs there the praise of the love-written record, The name and the epitaph graved on the stone ? The things we have lived for,–let them be our story, We ourselves but remembered by what we have done. Shall we be miss’d though by others succeeded, (I need not be missed, if my life has been bearing) Reaping the fields we in springtime have sown? (As its summer and autumn moved silently on) No, for the sowers may pass from their labors, (The bloom, and the fruit, and the seed of its season;) Only remembered by what they have done. (I shall still be remembered by what I have done.) Only the truth that in life we have spoken, (I need not be missed, if another succeed me,) Only the seed that on earth we have sown; (To reap down those fields which in spring I have sown;) These shall pass onward when we are forgotten, (He who ploughed and who sowed is not missed by the reaper,) Fruits of the harvest and what we have done. (He is only remembered by what he has done.) Not myself, but the truth that in life I have spoken, Not myself, but the seed that in life I have sown, Shall pass on to ages,–all about me forgotten, Save the truth I have spoken, the things I have done. So let my living be, so be my dying, So let my name lie, unblazoned, unknown ; Unpraised and unmissed, I shall still be remembered ; Yes,–but remembered by what I have done. Oh, when the Saviour shall make up His jewels, When the bright crowns of rejoicing are won, Then shall His weary and faithful disciples, All be remembered by what they have done. Fading away like the stars in the morning Losing their light in the glorious sun Thus shall we pass from this earth and its toiling Only remembered for what we have done Who’ll sing the anthems and who’ll tell the story Will the line hold? Will it scatter and run? Shall we at last be united in glory? Only remembered for what we have done Only the truth that in the life we have spoken, Only the seed that in life we have sown: (Only the deeds when our journey is run) These shall pass onwards when we are forgotten: Only remembered for what we have done. Where are they running? Why are they falling? Fewer still fewer than what was begun Ghosts in the morning mist voicelessly calling Only remembered for what we have done.