Whispering Hope

Septimus Winner, 1868

1. Soft, as the voice of an angel,
Breathing a lesson unheard,
Hope, with a gentle persuasion,
Whispers her comforting word:
   "Wait till the darkness is over,
   Wait till the tempest is done,
   Hope for the sunshine tomorrow,
   After the shower is gone."

Refrain:
Whispering hope, oh, how welcome thy voice,
Making my heart in its sorrow rejoice.

2. If, in the dusk of the twilight,
Dim be the region afar,
Will not the deepening darkness
Brighten the glimmering star?
Then when the night is upon us,
Why should the heart sink away?
When the dark midnight is over,
Watch for the breaking of day. Refrain

3. Hope, as an anchor so steadfast,
Rends the dark veil for the soul,
Whither the Master has entered,
Robbing the grave of its goal;
Come then, oh, come, glad fruition,
Come to my sad weary heart;
Come, O Thou blest hope of glory,
Never, oh, never depart. Refrain

Performances

Notes

This song was written in 1868 by Septimus Winner (1827-1902) and is sometimes found with credit to "Alice Hawthorne," which was one of his pseudonyms, as is the case with this sheet music published by The Standard Music Publishing Company, Philadelphia (1915):

Whispering Hope, A Duet for Soprano and Alto. Six Pages.
From "York Space," York University's Institutional Repository, Toronto, Canada

It is said to be based on Hebrews 6:19, “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil.” However, I've also read that Mr. Winner did not intend for this to be a religious song, and that he was both amazed and amused that it became his most successful song.

It is also found under the first line of the first verse, "Soft as the voice of an angel." The sheet music in the earlier hymnals in which this song is found is in the public domain. The earliest publication was in a collection titled "Early Flowers" (Lee & Walker, Philadelphia, Penn., 1872). "Whispering Hope" has been published in hymnbooks continuously since that time.

Additional details concerning Septimus Winner are below.

 

Sheet music from Popular Hymns Number 2, No. 200, p. 162 (1901)

 

Whispering Hope, A Duet for Soprano and Alto
(Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1910), from Duke University.

See additional sheet music from the Cyber Hymnal, plus the scans from eight hymnals at Hymntime.com.

At York University, Toronto, Canada, there is sheet music to Whispering Hope from 1925 was in the key of E♭,
with ukulele chord diagrams in the same key; the strings were tuned to B♭ e♭ G C.
Whispering Hope in the key of E♭ (PDF)

Whispering Hope by Alice Hawthorne (Boston, MA: Oliver Ditson Company, 1905), the DeVincent Collection, Lilly Library, Indiana University

 

Song Sheets

Whispering Hope (with chord names) (docx & odt)

Whispering Hope (in the keys of C & G, with chord names and ukulele chord diagrams) (docx & odt)

 

Biographical Background on Septimus Winner

Septimus "Sep" Winner was born May 11, 1827, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the seventh child (hence the name Septimus) of Joseph Eastburn Winner, a violin-maker, and Mary Ann nee Rittenhouse Winner — a relative of New England poet and author, Nathaniel Hawthorne — who were married in 1825. The paternal grandparents were Joseph Winner and Elizabeth (Evans) Winner.

On Nov. 25, 1847, he married Hannah Jane Guyer in Philadelphia. Hannah was also born in 1827. She was the daughter of Benjamin Guyer and Sarah Nixon.

The couple had several children including Emily, Ella, James G., Mary A., and Margaret F. (Maggie) Winner, who became a celebrated artist; her obituary was published in the "The Philadelphia Inquirer" on Dec. 22, 1937. Among her other works was a a portrait of Supreme Court Justice Taney together with 13 portraits for Dickinson College, and a portrait her nephew, John Kirk McCurdy, a "Rough Rider" who served during the Spanish American War.

Although he was largely self-taught, in early 1853, at the age of twenty-six, Winner studied music theory for several months with Leopold Meignen (1793-1873), a French-born composer, conductor, publisher, and teacher. In his estate, there was a notebook that contained detailed notes on music theory taken by Winner during his weekly studies with Meignen from early January to early May 1853. Winner numbered the sixteen sessions consecutively and made notes on all but three of them. Winner mentions the lessons in his diary from this time, noting in one entry his studies with Meignen in "the art and science of music" and in another describing the lessons as "the most amusing and interesting study on earth."

Throughout his life he performed regularly with the orchestras of the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, one of the oldest music societies in the U.S.; the Cecilian Music Society, which often featured performances with large choral forces; and the Philadelphia Brass Band.

At age twenty, Winner opened a music store where he gave music lessons on a variety of instruments including the violin, guitar and banjo.

He was one of the first songwriters to form his own publishing company, which he first formed with his brother, Joseph Eastburn Winner, and which they operated from 1845 to 1854; Joseph was also a composer whose works included "The Little Brown Jug." Later, he partnered with William H. Shuster as Winner & Shuster from 1853 to 1856, with M. A. Smith as Winner & Co. in 1863, with James F. Ferguson as Sep. Winner & Co. in 1866 to 1867, and with his son J. Gibson Winner as Sep. Winner & Son from 1873 to 1897, who took over the business after his father died. Owning his own publishing company allowed him to market both his songs and his music instruction books for 23 different instruments, several of which were published under the title Septimus Winner's Methods.

While in his early 20s, he began writing music and lyrics, many of them under various pseudonyms. He was a skilled and prolific composer, creating some fifteen hundred works for chorus and various instrumental ensembles, over 200 popular songs, and over 2,000 arrangements specifically for the violin and piano. Winner was especially popular for his ballads published under the pseudonym of Alice Hawthorne, which became known generically as "Hawthorne's Ballads". His earliest commercial success came in 1854 with the popular song, "What Is Home without a Mother."

The next year, he wrote "Listen To The Mockingbird" using a tune he had heard from an African American street musician, Richard Milburn, known as "Whistling Dick," who played guitar and whistled on Philadelphia streets for money. One of Mr. Milburn's entertainments was to imitate a mockingbird by whistling a particular melody. Winner took this melody and wrote lyrics to it. The first publication of the sheet music by Winner & Shuster listed the songwriting credit as "Melody by Richard Milburn...Written and arranged by Alice Hawthorne." Later editions by other publishers omit Milburn and give the credit solely to Hawthorne. However, throughout his life, Sep Winner gave credit for the tune to Richard Milburn.

Shortly after publication of this song, he sold the rights for just five dollars; in the next few years, it became one of the biggest hits of the era, selling over 20,000,000 copies and netting the new owners an estimated $250,000!

In 1862, he composed "Give Us Back Our Old Commander: Little Mac, the People's Pride." It was intended as an appeal to President Abraham Lincoln to return Union General George McClellan to service. The song sold 80,000 copies within a few days. It was branded anti-Union, however, and Winner was arrested, court-martialed, and briefly jailed on a charge of treason. The charge was dropped after he agreed to destroy all remaining copies of the song. After his release, he composed the popular Der Deitcher's Dog ( "Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone"), set to the German folk-song melody, "In Lauterbach hab' ich mein' Strumpf verlor'n," which recorded massive sales during Winner's lifetime. (You may draw your own conclusions.) The "Little Mac" song resurfaced when McClellan ran for the presidency in 1864.

Another of his best-remembered songs, "Ten Little Injuns", was originally published in 1864. This was adapted, possibly by Frank J. Green in 1868, and became a standard in minstrel shows. It was sung by Christy's Minstrels and became widely known in Europe, where it was used by Agatha Christie in her best-selling 1939 novel And Then There Were None (also published under the title Ten Little Indians; assorted stage productions, radio and television series, and movies have used these two titles, among others).

Winner’s last successful composition, published in 1868, was “Whispering Hope.”

His choral compositions and arrangements were largely an extension of his popular-song style. They were usually written in strophic form to complement his poetic texts, which generally featured a rhyme scheme that repeated in each stanza. These short choral pieces typically were written in a verse/chorus style, with the verse in unison and the contrasting chorus in parts. Winner wrote many such pieces encompassing the gamut of popular themes from comical to romantic.

In addition to his music writing and publishing, Winner was a frequent contributor to Graham's Magazine, then edited by Edgar Allen Poe. He wrote a book of poetry, published posthumously, titled Cogitations of a Crank at Three Score Years and Ten (Philadelphia: Drexer Biddle Press, 1903). Other private writings were later published in The Mocking Bird: The Life and Diary of Its Author, Septimus Winner by Charles Eugene Claghorn, his great-grandson (Philadelphia: The Magee Press, 1937).

Winner died in Philadelphia of a heart attack on November 22, 1902. Hannah died Saturday, Oct. 12, 1918 at the age of 91. Her obituary was published in the "Evening Public Ledger," Philadelphia, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 1918. She was survived by J. Gibson Winner, Mrs. H. T. (Emily) Claghorn, and Miss Margaret F. Winner, an artist. She was preceded in death by her daughter, Ella G. Winner McCurdy (1850–1884). She had a son, John Kirk McCurdy (1878-1945) who was a "Rough Rider" in Troop F, 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, under Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish American War.

Pseudonyms:

He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Sources:

Concerning the song:

Concerning the author: