What’s this morn’s bright eye to me,
If I see not Thine and Thee,
Fairer Jesu; in whose face
All my Heaven is spread! Alas,
Still I grovel in dead night,
Whilst I want Thy living light;
Dreaming with wide open eyes
Fond fantastic vanities.
Shine, my only Daystar, shine:
So mine eyes shall wake by Thine;
So the dreams I grope in now
To clear visions all shall grow;
So my day shall measured be
By Thy Grace’s clarity;
So shall I discern the path
Thy sweet law prescribed hath;
For Thy ways cannot be shown
By any light but by Thine own.

Joseph Beaumont (1615-1699)

Happy choristers of air,
Who by your nimble flight draw near His throne,
Whose wondrous story,
And unconfined glory
Your notes still carol, whom your sound
And whom your plumy pipes rebound.
Yet do the lazy snails no less
The greatness of our Lord confess.
And those whom weight hath chained,
And to the earth restrained,
Their ruder voices do as well,
Yea, and the speechless fishes tell.
Great Lord, from whom each tree receives,
Then pays again, as rent, his leaves;
Thou dost in purple set
The rose and violet
And gir’st the sickly lily white;
Yet in them all thy name dost write.

John Hall (1627-1656)

The night is come like to the day,
Depart not Thou, great God, away;
Let not my sins, black as the night,
Eclipse the lustre of Thy light.
Keep still in my horizon, for to me
The sun makes not the day, but Thee.
Thou whose nature cannot sleep,
On my temples sentry keep;
Guard me ’gainst those watchful foes,
Whose eyes are open while mine close.
Let no dreams my head infest,
But such as Jacob’s temples blest.
While I do rest, my soul advance,
Make my sleep a holy trance:
That I may, my rest being wrought,
Awake into some holy thought.
And as with active vigour run
My course, as doth the nimble sun.
Sleep is a death, O make me try
By sleeping what it is to die.
And as gently lay my head
On my grave, as now my bed.
Now ere I rest, great God, let me
Awake again at last with Thee.
And thus assured, behold I lie
Securely, or to wake or die.
These are my drowsy days, in vain
I do now wake to sleep again.
O come that hour, when I shall never
Sleep again, but wake for ever!

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)