Bible Songs — Invitation

Are You Within the Fold To-night?

The golden light is fading

No. 1298
Tune ARE YOU WITHIN THE FOLD TO-NIGHT?
Words F. E. B.
Music F. E. Belden.
Key E-flat major
Singing key E♭ major
Time 6/8
4 stanzas

Words

The golden light is fadingUpon the mountains gray,And twilight's purple shadingFalls o'er the dying dayAs to the fold for slumberThe weary flock draws near:One hundred was the number,—Are there one hundred here?One hundred was the number,—Are there one hundred here?

REFRAIN

Are you within the fold to-night,The fold of Christ, the fold of light?Are you within the fold to-night?Are you within the fold (to-night)?The gentle Shepherd calls you now,With tearful eyes and saddened brow;Wilt thou not come? O come just now,There's room in Jesus' fold.

I'll count the dear ones over,The tender Shepherd said,My own warm fold shall coverEach lamb that I have led;If one has wandered blindlyOr willfully away,I'll seek it long and kindly,Nor wait till break of day.I'll seek it long and kindly,Nor wait till break of day.

With tender, anxious glances,He counts them o'er with care,And vain his hopeful fancies,—But ninety-nine are there.Then forth into the shadows,All else by him forgot,He searches moor and meadows,And searching findeth not.He searches moor and meadows,And searching, findeth not.

The midnight dews are falling,Yet through the mountains wildHe seeks the lost one calling:"Come back, come back, my child;"His voice is sad with pleading,His locks are damp and cold,His feet are torn and bleeding,—There's one without the fold.His feet are torn and bleeding,—There's one without the fold.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: hymn number «1298» (large, left), title «ARE YOU WITHIN THE FOLD TO-NIGHT?» centred (capitals and small capitals); under it the epigraph in two lines of small type, «"If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth / into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?"—Matt. 18 : 12.»; on the next line «F. E. B.» at the left (words), «[Respectfully dedicated to James McGranahan.]» in italic inside square brackets at the centre (a dedication), «F. E. BELDEN.» at the right (music); «Tenderly, with expression.» (italic) over the first bar. No meter and no reference line are printed. The hymn runs over two pages: the four stanzas are interlinear, «1.»–«4.» before the four lines of system 1, in the four systems of PDF 509 (printed 508) and the top system of PDF 510 (printed 509), whose running title is «ARE YOU WITHIN THE FOLD TO-NIGHT?—Concluded.»; «REFRAIN.» (bold capitals) heads system 2 of PDF 510 and the refrain words are printed once, one line under each of systems 2–5; the refrain is sung after every stanza. «Copyrighted 1886 by F. E. Belden.» is printed under the music of PDF 509, above the folio «508». The last two verse lines of every stanza are printed twice — at the end of system 4 of PDF 509 and again in the top system of PDF 510, to new music — and are sung twice; they are given here twice, as printed, with their own punctuation (stanza 3: «And searching findeth not.» the first time, «And searching, findeth not.» the second). Each printed line of words follows the staff, not the verse (every system holds two verse lines); the stanzas are set here in their verse lines. The words divided under the notes are joined («gold - en», «fad - ing», «Up - on», «mount - ains», «twi - light's», «pur - ple», «shad - ing», «dy - ing», «slum - ber», «wea - ry», «hun - dred», «num - ber», «o - ver», «ten - der», «Shep - herd», «cov - er», «wan - dered», «blind - ly», «will - ful - ly», «a - way», «kind - ly», «anx - ious», «glanc - es», «hope - ful», «fan - cies», «nine - ty - nine», «in - to», «shad - ows», «for - got», «search - es», «mead - ows», «search - ing», «find - eth», «mid - night», «fall - ing», «call - ing», «plead - ing», «bleed - ing», «with - out»; refrain «with - in», «gen - tle», «tear - ful», «Je - sus'»); the divisions are in `lyrics_syllables.txt`. «to-night» and «ninety-nine» keep the hyphen of the word. The print sets a thin space before «?», «;» and «:» («here ?», «led ;», «near :», «child ; "», «18 : 12»); it is closed up here; the curly quotation marks and apostrophes are written straight («I'll», «o'er», «twilight's», «There's», «Jesus'»). Spelling («to-night», «willfully», «o'er»), capitals («Shepherd», «Christ») and punctuation are the print's, including «fading» and «day» with no comma at the end of their verse lines in stanza 1, the dashes «number,—», «fancies,—But», «bleeding,—There's», and «"Come back, come back, my child;"» in quotation marks.