My Jesus I Love Thee


My Jesus I Love Thee is a poem written by William Ralph Featherston around 1864. He is said to have been either 12 or 16 years old when he wrote the poem. The first two lines of this poem are nearly the same as a hymn written by Caleb J. Taylor, published in 1804; this hymn is used as the basis for the song Imandra by Ananias Davisson in the Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony in 1820, reprinted in Southern Harmony in 1835. There are other similarities between Featherston's poem and camp-meeting songs published in the 1820s onward.
In 1876 Adoniram Gordon added music to Featherston's poem. Featherston died at the age of 27, well before his poem had become a well-known inspirational hymn. The poem is believed to have been his only publicly published work.

Inspiration

According to Tim Challies,

Notable recordings