Reginald Heber

Hymns

• Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
  Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.
  Star of the east the horizon adorning,
  Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.
  • "Epiphany", st. 1 (1811)

• By cool Siloam's shady rill
  How sweet the lily grows!
  • "First Sunday After Epiphany", no. 2 (1812)

• The Son of God goes forth to war,
  A kingly crown to gain;
  His blood red banner streams afar:
  Who follows in His train?
  Who best can drink his cup of woe,
  Triumphant over pain,
  Who patient bears his cross below,
  He follows in His train.
  • "The Son of God Goes Forth to War", st. 1 (1812)

• From Greenland's icy mountains,
  From India's coral strand,
  Where Afric's sunny fountains
  Roll down their golden sand.
  • "Missionary Hymn", st. 1 (1819)

• Though every great prospect pleases,
  And only man is vile.
  • "Missionary Hymn", st. 2 (1819)

• The heathen in his blindness
  Bows down to wood and stone.
  • "Missionary Hymn", st. 2 (1819)

• Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!
  Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee:
  Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty!
  God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.
  • "Holy, Holy, Holy!" (1827)

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• Failed the bright promise of your early day.
  • "Palestine".

• No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung;
  Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.
  Majestic silence!
  • "Palestine"; this was altered in later editions to: "No workman’s steel, no ponderous axes rung, Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung".

• When Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil.
  • "Seventh Sunday after Trinity"
• Beneath our feet and o'er our head
  Is equal warning given:
  Beneath us lie the countless dead,
  Above us is the heaven!

  Death rides on every passing breeze,
  And lurks in every flower;
  Each season has its own disease,
  Its peril every hour.

  • "At a Funeral", No. I

• Thou art gone to the grave; but we will not deplore thee,
  Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb.
  • "At a Funeral", No. II

• Thus heavenly hope is all serene,
  But earthly hope, how bright soe’er,
  Still fluctuates o’er this changing scene,
  As false and fleeting as ’t is fair.
  • "On Heavenly Hope and Earthly Hope"

• I see them on their winding way,
  About their ranks the moonbeams play.
  • "Lines written to a March"