1 Ye golden lamps of heav’n farewell,
With all your feeble light;
Farewell thou ever-changing moon,
Pale empress of the night,
Pale empress of the night.
2 And thou refulgent orb of day,
In brighter flames arrayed;
My soul, that springs beyond thy sphere,
No more demands thy aid,
No more demands thy aid.
3 Ye stars are but the shining dust
Of my divine abode,
The pavement of those heav’nly courts,
Where I shall see my God,
Where I shall see my God.
Philip Doddridge (b. London, England, 1702; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 1751) belonged to the Non-conformist Church (not associated with the Church of England). Its members were frequently the focus of discrimination. Offered an education by a rich patron to prepare him for ordination in the Church of England, Doddridge chose instead to remain in the Non-conformist Church. For twenty years he pastored a poor parish in Northampton, where he opened an academy for training Non-conformist ministers and taught most of the subjects himself. Doddridge suffered from tuberculosis, and when Lady Huntington, one of his patrons, offered to finance a trip to Lisbon for his health, he is reputed to have said, "I can as well go to heaven from Lisbon as from Nort… Go to person page >
Display Title: Ye golden lamps of heav'n, farewellFirst Line: Ye golden lamps of heav'n, farewellTune Title: THE LAST WORDS OF COPERNICUSAuthor: Philip DoddridgeMeter: C.M.Date: 1991