text: Follow Thee more nearly. Richard is supposed to have recited the prayer on his deathbed, surrounded by the clergy of the diocese. The words were transcribed, in Latin, by his confessor Ralph Bocking, a Dominican friar, and were eventually published in the Acta Sanctorum, an encyclopedic text in 68 folio volumes of documents examining the lives of Christian saints. The British Library copy, contains what is believed to be Bocking's transcription of the prayer:
  Gratias tibi ago, Domine Jesu Christe, de omnibus beneficiis quae mihi praestitisti;
  pro poenis et opprobriis, quae pro me pertulisti;
  propter quae planctus ille lamentabilis vere tibi competebat.
  Non est dolor similis sicut dolor meus.
  Whoever translated the Latin into English was obviously skilled in his craft as he managed to produce a rhyming triplet, namely "clearly, dearly, nearly". However, versions of St Richard's prayer, before the 20th century, did not contain the triplet and it is thought that the first version that did was published in "The Churchmans Prayer Manual" by G.R.Bullock-Webster in 1913.  The first use of the rhyming triplet in a hymn was in the "Mirfield Mission Hymnbook" of 1922, and the first use of the phrase "Day by Day" was in the  "Songs of Praise, Enlarged Edition" published in 1931.