For ever we would gaze on Thee

For ever we would gaze on Thee. Allen William Chatfield* (1808-1896).  This hymn was written in March 1874, and published in the Second Edition of A&M (1875). It was written, ‘whilst journeying to, and attending at the Assize Court at Shrewsbury' (Frere, 1909, p. 354). It may have been one of those ‘first published in this, or former editions, and for the most part written at their [the Editors’] request’ (Preface, p. iv). It was one of only two hymns in the book for the Feast of the Transfiguration (6 August), the other being ‘In days of old on Sinai’ translated from the Greek by John Mason Neale* (from the Appendix, 1868, to the First Edition of A&M. See JJ, p. 224). Chatfield’s...