1. Behold the sun, that seem’d but now
Enthronèd overhead,
Beginneth to decline below
The globe whereon we tread;
And he, whom yet we look upon
With comfort and delight,
Will quite depart from hence anon,
And leave us to the night.
2. Thus time, unheeded, steals away
The life which nature gave;
Thus are our bodies every day
Declining to the grave;
Thus from us all our pleasures fly
Whereon we set our heart;
And when the night of death draws nigh,
Thus will they all depart.
3. Lord! though the sun forsake our sight,
And mortal hopes are vain,
Let still Thine everlasting light
Within our souls remain;
And in the nights of our distress
Vouchsafe those rays divine
Which from the Sun of Righteousness
For ever brightly shine.
Source: The Cyber Hymnal #453
First Line: | Behold the sun, that seemed but now |
Author: | George Wither |
Language: | English |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
Behold the sun that seemed but now. G. Wither. [Afternoon.] First printed in his Hallelujah, or Britain's Second Remembrancer, Lond., 1641, where it is No. 14 of his first part "Hymns Occasional." It is headed "At Sunsetting," and prefaced by the following note, “The singing or meditating to such purposes as are intimated in this Hymn, when we see the sun declining may perhaps expel unprofitable musings, and arm against the terrors of approaching darkness."
It is in 3 stanzas of 8 lines, and its use is by no means equal to its merits. It was included in Farr's reprint of the Hallelujah, 1857; and thence, passing through Lord Selborne's Book of Praise, 1862, was given in Thring's Collection, No. 20, with two slight alterations, Thring reading stanza i., lines 4, "The" for "This"; and in stanza ii., lines 5, "our" for "those." It is also in the Westminster Abbey Hymn Book , 1883. [William T. Brooke]
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)