- Full Text
- My flying years time urges on
Who is human must decay
My friends my young companions gone
Can I expect to stay.
- Listed on Page Number
- 296
- Sampler Worked By
- Matilda Catherine Mettiss
- Date of Sampler
- 1829
- Place Sampler Made
- n.p.
- Sampler Listed on Page
- 196
- Author/Publication/Country/Date
- Witney. “A Hymn,” Urban Slyvanus, The Gentleman’s Magazine, London: E. Cave, February 1749. Pg. 87.
- Notes
- https://archive.org/details/s2492id1330001/page/87/mode/1up?q=february
Edward Cave was the pseudonym for Sylvanus Urban. Cave was the editor of The Gentleman’s Magazine.
This hymn is included in later hymnals, as early as 1756, uncredited to any author.
The author’s name below the poem is given as “Witney, Feb. 15, 1749.” But that probably refers to a place. Witney is a town in Oxfordshire, England. The note in the Gentleman’s Magazine may refer to the place of origin of the hymn rather than an author’s name. John Wesley preached in and near West Oxfordshire at the time but a search of Wesleyan Hymns did not turn up any direct results. Their influence and promotion of hymn writing might make an argument for Witney being a place name rather than an author’s name.