Lyricist: Cecil Spring-Rice
From HymnsWithoutWords
Biography
Sir Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice GCMG GCVO (1859 - 1918) was a English diplomat who served as British Ambassador to the United States from 1912 to 1918.
Spring-Rice was the son of Hon. Thomas William Spring Rice, second son of the prominent Whig politician and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon. He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, and went on to become the British Chargé d'Affaires in Tehran (1900), Commissioner of Public Debt in Cairo (1901) and Chargé d'Affaires in St. Petersburg (1903). He later served in Persia (1906) and Sweden (1908) before his appointment as ambassador to the United States in 1912. He was abruptly recalled in a one-line telegram; and died in Ottawa shortly thereafter.
He wrote the present text for the legendary hymn I vow to thee my country, which can now be found in many British Hymn books, revising a poem of his own, about the same time.
