Walter C. Smith (1824–1908) grounded this hymn of praise in 1 Timothy 1:17, “the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God,” and layered it with further Old Testament imagery: the first stanza draws its title “Ancient of Days” from Daniel 7:9 and its vision of glory from Psalm 104:1, the third stanza compares our short lives to a blooming plant, an image from Psalm 103:15–16 long used at Christian funerals, and the fourth echoes 1 Timothy 6:15–16’s praise of the Lord who “dwells in unapproachable light.” What we sing today is a heavily edited version of Smith’s original six-stanza poem from his 1867 Hymns of Christ and the Christian Life; editors spliced his final two stanzas into the single concluding stanza we now sing, in the process removing an original prayer to “take the veil from our faces, the veil from our heart.” The tune, ST. DENIO, has secular roots in a Welsh folk song, “Can mlynedd i ’nawr” (“A hundred years from now”), also associated with the name of Daniel Rowlands, a leader of the Welsh Methodist revival. As the hymn that closes a service built on the God who conquers death, it lifts the congregation’s eyes to the eternal, unchanging God who alone gives and restores life.