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." Verses 1,3, and 5 below are Sankey's; 4, 6, and 7 are Tams' (added in 2007, 2017, and 1990 respectively). Verse 2 is adapted by Alex Ellis from the only one of Bonar's stanzas not adapted by Sankey whose poetry rises above sepulchral tedium.
Fading away like the stars of the morning
Losing their light in the glorious sun
Thus would we pass from the earth and its toiling
Only remembered for what we have done.
Chorus:
Only remembered, only remembered
Only remembered by what we have done.
(last two lines of previous verse)
Yes, like the fragrance that wanders in freshness,
When the scent’s flowers are closed up and gone,
So would I be to this world’s weary dwellers,
Only remembered for what I have done.
Shall we be missed though by others succeeded
Reaping the fields we in springtime have sown?
No, for the sowers may pass from their labors
Only remembered for what they have done
Horses and men, plowshares and traces
The line on the land and the paths of the sun
Season by season we mark nature’s graces
Only remembered for what we have done.
Only the truth that in life we have spoken,
Only the seed that in life we have sown
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.
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