O My Father (hymn)

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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O My Father (1845)
by Eliza Roxcy Snow

"O My Father" is a Latter-day Saint (LDS or Mormon) hymn on the principle of heavenly parents. Interesting in terms of Mormon theology in that it is the one of the few authoritative references to the "Heavenly Mother", who is assumed to exist but remains otherwise officially unacknowledged.

SourceL Times and Seasons 6 (15 November 1845):1039

11935O My Father1845Eliza Roxcy Snow

             POETRY.

   For the Times and Seasons.

      MY FATHER IN HEAVEN;

     BY MISS ELIZA R. SNOW

O my Father, thou that dwellest
   In the high and glorious place;
When shall I regain thy presence,
   And again behold thy face?
In thy holy habitation
   Did my spirit once reside?
In my first primeval childhood
   Was I nurtur'd near thy side?

For a wise and glorious purpose
   Thou hast plac'd me here on earth,
And withheld the recollection
   Of my former friends and birth:
Yet oft times a secret something
   Whispered you're a stranger here;
And I felt that I had wandered
   From a more exalted sphere.

I had learn'd to call thee father
   Through thy spirit from on high;
But until the key of knowledge
   Was restor'd, I knew not why.
In the heav'ns are parents single?
   No, the thought makes reason stare;
Truth is reason—truth eternal
   Tells me I've a mother there.

When I leave this frail existence—
   When I lay this mortal by,
Father, mother, may I meet you
   In your royal court on high?
Then, at length, when I've completed
   All you sent me forth to do,
With your mutual approbation
   Let me come and dwell with you.

City of Joseph, Oct. 1845.