The author of this text, George Matheson, once said his poem "came like a dayspring from on high." The words stir the soul with their truth and eloquence, couched in archaic 19th-century language. Albert L. Peace's tune St. Margaret carries Matheson's text simply and directly. The arrangement was written at the request the Wake Forest University Theatre, who asked for a setting of the hymn for a production of Thornton Wilder's well-known play Our Town, specifically for the graveyard scene. The piano accompaniment conjures up the tolling of a bell that between stanzas breaks forth between stanzas into poignant melody as the voices in monotone "rest" in God's everlasting love.
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