1 When morning gilds the skies,
My heart awaking cries
May Jesus Christ be praised:
Alike at work and prayer
To Jesus I repair;
May Jesus Christ be praised.

2 When sleep her balm denies,
My silent spirit sighs,
May Jesus Christ be praised:
When evil thoughts molest,
With this I shield my breast,
May Jesus Christ be praised.

3 Does sadness fill my mind?
A solace here I find,
May Jesus Christ be praised:
Or fades my earthly bliss?
My comfort still is this,
May Jesus Christ be praised.

4 In heaven's eternal bliss
The loveliest strain is this,
May Jesus Christ be praised:
The powers of darkness fear,
When this sweet chant thy hear,
May Jesus Christ be praised.

5 Let earth's wide circle round
In joyful notes resound,
May Jesus Christ be praised:
Let earth, and sea, and sky,
From depth to height, reply,
May Jesus Christ be praised.

6 Be this, while life is mine,
My canticle Divine,
May Jesus Christ be praised:
Be this the eternal song
Through all the ages on,
May Jesus Christ be praised.

Amen.

The Hymnal: Published by the authority of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., 1895

Scripture References:
st. 1 = Ps. 34:1
st. 2 = Rev. 5:6-14
st. 3 = Ps. 19:1
ref. = Heb. 13:15

This litany of praise to Christ was translated from an anonymous
German text, "Beim frühen Morgenlicht," thought to date from around 1800 (perhaps even the mid-1700s). The German text was first published in Sebastian Portner's Katholisches Gesanglruch (1828) in fourteen stanzas of couplets with a refrain line.

Edward Caswall's English translation, prepared from one of several variants of the text, was published in six stanzas in Henry Formby's Catholic Hymns (1854). Caswall (b. Yately, Hampshire, England, 1814; d. Edgebaston, Birmingham, England, 1878) published another eight stanzas in his Masque of Mary (1858). Like most other hymnals, the Psalter Hymnal provides a text taken from various parts of the Caswall translation.

A morning hymn (st. 1) as well as an evening hymn (st. 4), the text presents praise to Christ from angels and human creatures (st. 2) and from the elements of earth to the farthest reach of the cosmos (st. 3). In fact, this text is for all times and places: "Be this the eternal song"!

Caswell, the son of an Anglican clergyman, studied for the priesthood at Brasenose College, Oxford, England. He was ordained in 1839 and served the church in Stratford-sub-Castle but resigned his position in 1847. By this time he had become deeply involved in the Oxford Movement, an Anglican movement with strong Roman Catholic leanings. In 1847 Caswell and his wife traveled to Rome, where they were received into the Roman Catholic Church. After his wife's death Caswell became a Roman Catholic priest and joined the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Birmingham, a group supervised by John Henry Newman, an earlier Roman Catholic convert from the Church of England. Caswell then devoted himself to two main tasks–serving the poor of Birmingham and writing and translating hymns, mainly from the Latin office-books and from German sources. Many of his translations were published in his Lyra Catholica (1849) and, with revisions, in Hymns and Poems (1873).

Liturgical Use:
Many occasions as a hymn of praise to Christ; a hymn for all seasons and all times of worship–morning, midday, or evening; could also frame the day of worship with stanzas 1-3 used at the beginning of morning worship and stanzas 4-5 used as a doxology for evening worship.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook