There is a pathos in the neglect and oblivion of Lyte's own tune set by himself to his words, especially as it was in a sense the work of a dying man who had hoped that he might not be "wholly mute and useless" while lying in his grave, and who had prayed-- O Thou whose touch can lend Life to the dead. Thy quickening grace supply, And grant me swan-like my last breath to spend In song that may not die! His prayer was answered in God's own way. Another's melody hastened his hymn on its useful career, and revealed to the world its immortal value. By the time it had won its slow recognition in England, it was probably tuneless, and the compilers of _Hymns Ancient and Modern_ (1861) discovering the fact just as they were finishing their work, asked Dr. William Henry Monk, their music editor, to supply the want. "In ten minutes," it is said, "Dr. Monk composed the sweet, pleading chant that is wedded permanently to Lyte's swan song." William Henry Monk, Doctor of Music, was born in London, 1823. His musical education was early and thorough, and at the age of twenty-six he was organist and choir director in King's College, London. Elected (1876) professor of the National Training School, he interested himself actively in popular musical education, delivering lectures at various institutions, and establishing choral services. His hymn-tunes are found in many song-manuals of the English Church and in Scotland, and several have come to America. Dr. Monk died in 1889. "COME, YE DISCONSOLATE." By Thomas Moore--about 1814. The poem in its original form differed somewhat from the hymn we sing. Thomas Hastings--whose religious experience, perhaps, made him better qualified than Thomas Moore for spiritual expression--changed the second line,-- Come, at God's altar fervently kneel, --to-- Come to the mercy seat, --and in the second stanza replaced-- Hope when all others die, --with-- Hope of the penitent; --and for practically the whole of the last stanza-- Go ask the infidel what boon he brings us, What charm for aching hearts he can reveal. Sweet as that heavenly promise hope sings us, "Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal," --Hastings substituted-- Here see the Bread of life, see waters flowing Forth from the throne of God, pure from above! Come to the feast Love, come ever knowing Earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove. Dr. Hastings was not much of a poet, but he could make a _singable_ hymn, and he knew the rhythm and accent needed in a hymn-tune. The determination was to make an evangelical hymn of a poem "too good to lose," and in that view perhaps the editorial liberties taken with it were excusable. It was to Moore, however, that the real hymn-thought and key-note first came, and the title-line and the sweet refrain are his own--for which the Christian world has thanked him, lo these many years. _THE TUNE._