Fling Out the Banner

Words: George W. Doane, 1848. Doane wrote this hymn for a ceremony to raise a new flag at St. Mary’s School in Burlington, New Jersey. It was published in Songs by the Way, 1875.

Music: Waltham (Calkin) John B. Calkin, 1872 (🔊 pdf nwc).

Alternate Tune:

Cathcart William H. Bell, in The English Hymnal (London: Oxford University Press, 1906), number 546 (🔊 pdf nwc)

If you know where to get a good photo of Calkin (head-and-shoulders, at least 200×300 pixels),

Fling out the banner! let it float
Skyward and seaward, high and wide;
The sun that lights its shining folds,
The cross, on which the Savior died.

Fling out the banner! heathen lands
Shall see from far the glorious sight,
And nations crowding to be born
Baptize their spirits in its light.

Fling out the banner! angels bend
In anxious silence o’er the sight,
And vainly seek to comprehend
The wonder of the love divine.

Fling out the banner! sin sick souls
That sink and perish in the strife,
Shall touch in faith its radiant hem,
And spring immortal into life.

Fling out the banner! let it float
Skyward and seaward, high and wide,
Our glory, only in the cross;
Our only hope, the Crucified!

Fling out the banner! wide and high,
Seaward and skyward, let it shine;
Nor skill, nor might, nor merit ours;
We conquer only in that sign.

Scripture Verse

Introduction

Lyrics