Lyrics
My latest sun is sinking fast,
My race is nearly run;
My strongest trials now are past,
My triumph is begun.
O come, angel band,
Come and around me stand;
O bear me away on your snowy wings
To my eternal home;
O bear me away on your snowy wings
To my eternal home.
I know I'm near the holy ranks
Of friends and kindred dear,
For I hear the waves on Jordan's banks,
The crossing must be near.
I've almost reached my heav'nly home,
My spirit loudly sings;
Thy holy ones, behold, they come!
I hear the noise of wings.
O bear my longing heart to Him,
Who bled and died for me;
Whose blood now cleanses from all sin,
And gives me victory.
Public domain hymn text (1860) and tune (1862). Words by Jefferson Hascall, music by William B. Bradbury.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Jefferson Hascall wrote 'My Latest Sun Is Sinking Fast' and published it in 1860 in The Melodeon, a songbook compiled by John W. Dadmun in Boston, giving it words considerably older than the American gospel song tradition that would flourish later in the century.
Its tune, titled 'The Land of Beulah,' was composed two years later, in 1862, by William B. Bradbury, one of the most prolific and influential American hymn tune composers of the nineteenth century, and published in his own Sunday school songbook.
Though the hymn's formal title comes from its opening line, it is much more widely known today by its refrain, 'O Come, Angel Band,' the phrase most singers and later recording artists have used to identify the song.
The hymn's central image pictures death not as loss but as an almost-completed journey, with the singer already able to hear 'the waves on Jordan's banks' and sense that 'the crossing must be near,' treating the final passage as imminent rather than distant.
Its refrain asks for a specific, gentle means of conveyance, angels bearing the singer away 'on your snowy wings,' an image of tender transport rather than a dramatic or frightening departure.
The hymn found a lasting home in American folk hymnody and Southern gospel and bluegrass traditions well beyond its original Sunday school songbook setting, recorded by numerous folk, country, and gospel artists across the twentieth century under its refrain title.
That crossover into secular folk and bluegrass performance, alongside its continued use in church hymnals, reflects the same broad appeal found in many nineteenth-century American hymns whose plain, vivid imagery of homecoming translated easily outside a strictly congregational setting.
