Awake the Sacred Song

Hope in Darkness

God is my sun, his blissful rays
Irradiate, warm, and guide my heart!
How dark, how mournful are my days
If his enlivening beams depart.

Scarce through the shades, a glimpse of day
Appears to these desiring eyes!
But shall my drooping spirit say,
The cheerful morn will never rise?

O let me not despairing mourn,
Though gloomy darkness spreads the sky;
My glorious sun will yet return,
And night with all its horrors fly.

Hope in the absence of my Lord
Shall be my taper; sacred light,
Kindled at his celestial word,
To cheer the melancholy night.

O for the bright, the joyful day
When hope shall in assurance die!
So tapers lose their feeble ray,
Beneath the sun's renewing^* eye.

^* Originally "refulgent".