There's a Bright Land

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Every morning the red sun

Author: Cecil Frances Alexander
Published in 77 hymnals

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Representative Text

1 Every morn the golden sun
Rises warm and bright;
But the evening cometh on,
And the cold, dark night:
There’s a bright land far away
Where ‘tis never ending day.

2 Every sprint the sweet young flow’rs
Open fresh and gay,
Till the chilly autumn hours
Wither them away!
There’s a land we have not seen,
Where the trees are always green.

3 Little birds sing songs of praise
All the summer long.
But in colder, shorter days
They forget their song:
There’s a place where angels sing
Ceaseless praises to their King.

4 Christ our Lord is ever near
Those who follow Him!
But we cannot see Him here,
For our eyes are dim:
There is a most happy place,
Where we’ll always see His face.

5 Who shall go to that fair land?
All who love the right:
Holy children there shall stand,
In their robes of white;
In that heav’n so bright and blest,
Is our everlasting rest.

Source: Hymns We Love, for Sunday Schools and All Devotional Meetings #81

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Author: Cecil Frances Alexander

As a small girl, Cecil Frances Humphries (b. Redcross, County Wicklow, Ireland, 1818; Londonderry, Ireland, 1895) wrote poetry in her school's journal. In 1850 she married Rev. William Alexander, who later became the Anglican primate (chief bishop) of Ireland. She showed her concern for disadvantaged people by traveling many miles each day to visit the sick and the poor, providing food, warm clothes, and medical supplies. She and her sister also founded a school for the deaf. Alexander was strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement and by John Keble's Christian Year. Her first book of poetry, Verses for Seasons, was a "Christian Year" for children. She wrote hymns based on the Apostles' Creed, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Ten Commandment… Go to person page >

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First Line:	Every morning the red sun
Title:	There's a Bright Land
Author:	Cecil Frances Alexander
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Revelation 22:5
(hymns)

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Notes

Every morning the red sun. Cecil F. Alexander. [Heaven.] This hymn, in 5 stanzas of 6 lines, is based on the article of the Apostles Creed, "And the life everlasting." It appeared in Mrs. Alexander's Hymns for Little Children, 1848, No. 20, and is repeated in later editions. It is found in several collections in G. Britain and America. In the American Church Praise Book, N. Y., 1882, it is altered to, "Every morn the glowing sun"; but the advantage of the change is questionable.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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