I would not live alway

I would not live alway. William Augustus Muhlenberg* (1796-1877). A version of this hymn is said to have been written in 1824 at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for a lady’s album, where it began: I would not live alway; no, no, holy man, Not a day, not an hour, should lengthen my span. This suggests the jeu d’esprit of a young clergyman, although it was based on Job 7: 16: ‘I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity.’ The original text had six 8-line stanzas. The text given in Ayres (1889) and printed in Edmund Clarence Stedman’s An American Anthology, 1787-1900 (1900) in six 8-line stanzas:  I would not live alway--live alway below! Oh no, I'll not linger when bidden to go:...