Now while the day in trailing splendor

Representative Text

1 Now while the day in trailing splendor
gives way to glories of the night,
thanksgiving to thy name we render,
O God of darkness and of light.
Each day from thee we have our being,
in all this wondrous order set;
thine omnipresence blinds our seeing,
and in thy gifts we thee forget.

2 Touch thou our eyes, their blindness healing,
till all this common earth and air
to our illumined sight and feeling
thy glory and thyself declare;
till storied marvel, sign, and token,
all pale before the nearer thought
of such vast miracles unbroken
from hour to hour around us brought.

Source: Singing the Living Tradition #45

Author: Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Hosmer, Frederick Lucian, B.A., was born at Framingham, Mass., in 1840, and educated at Harvard, where he graduated B.A. in 1869. Entering the Unitarian Ministry in 1872 he has held charges in Quincy, Ill., 1872-77; Cleveland, Ohio, 1878-92; St. Louis, 1894-99; and since 1899, at Berkeley, Cal. His Way of Life, 1877, was a compilation of Prayers and Responsive Services for Sunday Schools. Of Unity Hymns and Carols, 1880, he was joint editor with W. C. Gannett and J. V. Blake. His hymns were published jointly by him and W. C. Gannett (q.v.), as The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.), 1st Series, 1885; 2nd Series, 1894. Of his 56 hymns in this work the following have come into common use, for the most part during… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: Now while the day in trailing splendor
Author: Frederick Lucian Hosmer
Meter: 9.8.9.8 D
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Tune

DAY'S ENDING (Barnby)


SACRAMENT (Hopkins)


EUCHARISTIC HYMN

John Sebastian Bach Hodges (b. Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, 1830; d. Baltimore, MD, 1915) composed EUCHARISTIC HYMN for Heber's text in 1868, while he was rector at Grace Episcopal Church, Newark, New Jersey. He first published the tune in his Book of Common Praise (1869) and named it after th…

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Singing the Living Tradition #45

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