The widow’s only son (George J. Webb)

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• (Posted 2024-02-18)  CPDL #79179:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2024-02-18).   Score information: Letter, 8 pages, 433 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: The widow’s only son
Composer: George J. Webb
Lyricist: Hannah Flagg Gould
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1847 Wilkins, Carter, & Co.
Description: Although the text is somewhat devotional in nature, this song was not specifically sacred nor church music.

Original text and translations

English text

She wrapped her in her sable cloak,
And walked beside the sea;
But seldom of her sorrow spoke,—
Too full of grief was she!

’Twas this that made her heart so sad,
To view the ocean wide:
The only son, that widow had,
Went out to sea and died.

And often, when she marked a ship
With full, returning sail,
The color would forsake her lip,
And speech and sight would fail.

For, O! she thought about the one
That spread its canvass white,
To waft away her only son
Forever from her sight!

But still, amid the bitter grief
Which wrung that widow’s heart,
Her spirit felt the sweet relief
That faith and hope impart.

She knew her son had ever kept
The path to heavenly rest—
That, when he sank in death, he slept
Upon a Saviour’s breast.

She then would lift her languid eye
And send her thoughts above,
Where angel voices sound on high,
Their songs of praise and love.

“My heavenly Father,” she would say,
“The deep and troubled sea
But holds from me the precious clay:
My child’s at home with thee!”