Hymn #437
Text: William Alexander Percy
Music: David McKinley Williams
Tune name: GEORGETOWN
THE TEXT
Attorney and poet from Greenville, Mississippi, William Alexander Percy (1885–1942) was a first cousin-once-removed of novelist and essayist Walker Percy (1916–1990), who once described “Uncle Will” as “the most extraordinary man I have ever known.” A graduate of Sewanee (The University of the South), William Percy counted among his friends William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, and John Crowe Ransom. In addition to a much-admired autobiography, Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter’s Son (1941), his published work includes a collection of poetry released posthumously. The hymn, “They cast their nets in Galilee,” is one of those poems. Its links to today’s Gospel are obvious.
1. They cast their nets in Galilee
Just off the hills of brown;
Such happy, simple fisher-folk,
Before the Lord came down.
2. Contented, peaceful fishermen,
Before they ever knew
The peace of God that filled their hearts
Brimful, and broke them too.
3. Young John who trimmed the flapping sail,
Homeless, in Patmos died.
Peter, who hauled the teeming net,
Head down was crucified.
4. The peace of God, it is no peace,
But strife closed in the sod.
Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing —
The marvelous peace of God.
THE TUNE
GEORGETOWN was composed by David McKinley Williams for this text in 1941, and is named out of friendship for the Rev. F. Bland Tucker, who was then rector of St. John’s Church, Georgetown Parish, D.C.
Four other hymns in our Hymnal are sung to tunes composed by Williams: “Strengthen for service, Lord” (#202); “This is the hour of banquet and of song” (#206); “Non nobis Domine” (#503); and “Christ is the King!” (#543.
Williams (1887–1978) was born in Carnarvonshire, Wales, on February 20, 1887. At the age of three months he came to Denver, Colorado. He was trained as a chorister by Henry Houseley, organist of the Cathedral of St. John in the Wilderness, and became organist and choirmaster of St. Peter’s Church, Denver, at the age of 13.
In 1908, he went to New York City as organist of Grace Church Chapel, and studied under Clement Gale. He spent the years from 1911 to 1914 in Paris, studying at the Schola Cantorum under such masters as Vierne, D’Indy, and Widor. Returning to New York, he was at the Church of the Holy Communion from 1914 to 1916, when he joined the Canadian Artillery, 10th Siege Battery, and saw service overseas. In 1920, he returned to the Church of the Holy Communion, leaving six months later to become organist and choirmaster of St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York. There, over a period of 27 years, he developed one of the outstanding musical services in the United States. He resigned in 1947.
He was head of the organ department of Juilliard School in New York; on the staff of the music department of Union Theological Seminary; and a member of both the Joint Commission on Church Music and the Joint Commission on Revision of the Hymnal.
In 1928, he received the D.Mus. degree from King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia. He composed many services and anthems, as well as an opera, operetta, and Thirty-Jour Hymn Descants, 1948.