Shall we gather at the river,
Where bright angel feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of God?
Yes, we'll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river;
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.
On the margin of the river,
Washing up its silver spray,
We will walk and worship ever,
All the happy golden day.
Ere we reach the shining river,
Lay we every burden down;
Grace our spirits will deliver,
And provide a robe and crown.
Soon we’ll reach the shining river,
Soon our pilgrimage will cease;
Soon our happy hearts will quiver
With the melody of peace.
Public domain hymn text (published 1864). Words by Robert Lowry.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Robert Lowry was a Baptist pastor and, later in his career, a seminary professor of literature, who also possessed real musical gifts and often composed original tunes to fit hymn texts written by other well-known writers of his day, including several hymns by Fanny Crosby and the tune for Annie Hawks's 'I Need Thee Every Hour' (hymn 10 in this collection). Unusually for this particular hymn, however, Lowry departed from that typical pattern and wrote both the words and the music himself.
By his own later account, he composed the entire hymn quickly, on a hot and otherwise unremarkable summer afternoon in 1864, while sitting at home in New York during a period marked by considerable national anxiety, as the American Civil War still raged and a serious cholera epidemic was spreading through parts of the city, bringing frequent news of death and loss to congregations like his own. Turning those circumstances over in his mind, Lowry found himself drawn to the biblical image of the river of life described in Revelation 22:1 — 'a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God' — and wrote the hymn's verses and tune together in a single uninterrupted sitting.
Lowry later admitted candidly that he was not entirely satisfied with the hymn when he first finished it, privately considering it something of a minor, almost throwaway composition compared to the more deliberately crafted literary and musical work he took greater pride in elsewhere in his career. He was reportedly surprised, in later years, by how far it outpaced his more carefully considered work in popularity.
Despite its author's own modest initial estimation, the hymn went on to become one of his most enduring and widely loved compositions, sung at camp meetings, revival gatherings, and above all at funerals for generations after Lowry wrote it almost as an afterthought during a single anxious wartime afternoon — its imagery of a future gathering by a bright, clear river beside the throne of God becoming a familiar and comforting shorthand in American gospel song for the hope of reunion and rest with loved ones in the life to come.
