Bible Songs — Judgment and Second Advent

Look for the Way-Marks

Look for the way-marks as you journey on,

No. 1344
Tune LOOK FOR THE WAY-MARKS.
Words F. E. B.
Music F. E. Belden.
Key A-flat major
Singing key A♭ major
Time 4/4
3 stanzas

Words

Look for the way-marks as you journey on,Look for the way-marks, passing one by one;Down through the ages, past the kingdoms four,—Where are we standing? Look the way-marks o'er.

Chorus.

Look for the way-marks, the great prophetic way-marks,Down through the ages, past the kingdoms four.Look for the way-marks, the great prophetic way-marks;The journey's almost o'er.

First, the Assyrian kingdom ruled the world,Then Medo-Persia's banners were unfurled;And after Greece held universal sway,Rome seized the scepter,—Where are we to-day?

Down in the feet of iron and of clay,Weak and divided, soon to pass away;What will the next great, glorious drama be?Christ and his coming, And eternity.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: hymn number «1344» (large) at the left, title «LOOK FOR THE WAY-MARKS.» centred (capitals and small capitals; the final period is a blotted, upright mark, read as the period of the «—Concluded.» heading on the next page); under it four Scripture epigraphs in seven lines (given below; the printer's thin spaces around the colons of the references closed up; old-style figures written as ordinary figures; the Amos reference ends without a period at the line end); «F. E. B.» (the words) at the left and «F. E. BELDEN.» (the music, capitals and small capitals) at the right above system 1; «Copyrighted 1886 by F. E. Belden.» centred under the music, folio «554» below it. The song runs over to the next page under the heading «LOOK FOR THE WAY-MARKS.—Concluded.» (the three systems of the CHORUS, ending with a double heavy bar), and that page carries, below the music, the printed reading «THE FOUR UNIVERSAL KINGDOMS.» / «Interpretation of the Dream.» (transcribed in `printed_text_p556.md`); folio «555». No meter, no tune name other than the title, no tempo word, no reference line. The three stanzas are interlinear under the melody staff of PDF 555, numbered «1.»–«3.» in system 1; «CHORUS.» (bold capitals) heads PDF 556 and is sung after every stanza. Each printed line of words carries more or less than a verse line; the verse lines are given here one per line, by the rhymes (on/one, four/o'er; world/unfurled, sway/to-day; clay/away, be/eternity) and the capitals that open them. The print sets a thin space before «;» and «?»; it is closed up here. Words divided under the notes are joined («jour - ney», «pass - ing», «a - ges», «stand - ing», «As - syr - ian», «king - dom», «ban - ners», «af - ter», «u - ni - ver - sal», «scep - ter», «ir - on», «vid - ed», «a - way», «glo - rious», «dra - ma», «com - ing», «e - ter - ni - ty», «pro - phet - ic», «al - most»; «di- / vid - ed» across the system break). «way-marks» is the compound with its hyphen (printed tight «way-marks» in m1 and m9, spaced «way - marks» in m4); «Me - do- / Per - sia's» is the compound «Medo-Persia's»; «to - day» is the book's «to-day»; «kingdoms» (stanza 1, m7), «unfurled» (stanza 2, m5), «Romeseized» (stanza 2, m8, printed without the space) and «journey's» (chorus, m17) stand solid under two notes. Spelling («scepter»), punctuation and capitals («And eternity.») are the print's; apostrophes and quotation marks are written straight.