Come, Holy Spirit, come, Let Thy bright beams, &c. J. Hart [Whitsuntide.] Contributed to his Hymns composed on Various Subjects, 1759, No. 4, in 9 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed, "To the Holy Ghost." One of the earliest to adopt it was Toplady, in his Psalms & Hymns, 1776, No. 237, with alterations which have come down to modern collections. This text is that usually adopted in Church of England hymnals. It is easily recognized by stanza i., lines 3, 4, which read:—
"Dispel the
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Come, Holy Spirit, come, Let Thy bright beams, &c. J. Hart [Whitsuntide.] Contributed to his Hymns composed on Various Subjects, 1759, No. 4, in 9 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed, "To the Holy Ghost." One of the earliest to adopt it was Toplady, in his Psalms & Hymns, 1776, No. 237, with alterations which have come down to modern collections. This text is that usually adopted in Church of England hymnals. It is easily recognized by stanza i., lines 3, 4, which read:—
"Dispel the sorrow from our minds,
The darkness from our eyes,"
instead of—
"Dispel the darkness from our minds,
And open all our eyes,"
as in the original. Most of the American collections follow Toplady's text with slight variations, and abbreviations as in the Baptist Praise Book, N. Y., 1871; Songs for the Sanctuary, N. Y., 1865-72, &c. The abbreviated texts in the Irish Church Hymnal 1873; Dr. Hatfield's Church Hymn Book, 1872; Stowell's Psalms & Hymns, 1831 and 1877, and others, are from the original. No. 151, in the Mitre, 1836, is a cento, stanzas i., ii. being from this hymn, and iii., iv. from C. Wesley's "Spirit of faith, come down," in each case with alteration. Full original text in Lyra Britannica 1867, p. 273.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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