The Cyber Hymnal ‎#7210

7210. We Lift Our Hearts to Thee

1. We lift our hearts to Thee,
O Day Star from on high!
The sun itself is but Thy shade,
Yet cheers both earth and sky.

2. O let Thine orient beams
The night of sin disperse,
The mists of error and of vice
Which shade the universe.

3. How beauteous nature now:
How dark and sad before!
With joy we view the pleasing change,
And nature’s God adore.

4. O may no gloomy crime
Pollute the rising day;
Or Jesus’ blood, like evening dew,
Wash all the stains away.

5. May we this life improve,
To mourn for errors past;
And live this short, revolving day
As if it were our last.

6. To God—the Father, Son,
And Spirit—One in Three,
Be glory; as it was, is now,
And shall forever be.

Text Information

• First Line: We lift our hearts to Thee
• Title: We Lift Our Hearts to Thee
• Author: John Wesley (1741)
• Meter: SM
• Language: English
• Source: Collection of Psalms and Hymns, 1741
• Copyright: Public Domain
• Notes: This is one of the few original hymns ascribed to John Wesley. One reason why it is thought to be his rather than Charles Wesley's is that it is only half-rhymed. Not a single known stanza of Charles Wesley's has that peculiarity. The sublime thought expressed in the third line of the first stanza is borrowed from Plato: "Lumen est umbra Dei." Nutter, p. 29

Tune Information

• Name: MORNINGTON
• Composer: Garrett Colley Wellesley (arr.)
• Meter: SM
• Incipit: 55432 11765 65434
• Key: E Major
• Source: Mil­ler’s Da­vid’s Harp, 1805
• Copyright: Public Domain