Hope in Darkness

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O God, my Sun, thy blissful rays

Author: Anne Steele (1760)
Published in 36 hymnals

Representative Text

[p.126]
Hope in Darkness

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

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

III. 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.

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

[p.127]
V. O for the bright the joyful day,
When hope shall in assurance die!
So tapers lose their feeble ray,
Beneath the sun's refulgent eye.

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Author: Anne Steele

Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporar… Go to person page >

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