Evening Hymn

Top Text Author Text Info Tune Timeline Page Scans Instances

Sleep, downy sleep, come, close mine eyes

Author: Thomas Flatman
Tune: UFFINGHAM (Clarke)
Published in 16 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Sleep, downy sleep, come, close mine eyes
Tir'd with beholding vanites.
Welcome sweet sleep and chase away,
The toils and follies of the day.

2 On thy soft bosom, will I lie,
Forget the world, and learn to die,
O Israel's wathcful shepherd spread,
Thy guardian angels round my bed.

3 Let not the spirits of the air,
While I lie slumb'ring me insnare;
But gurad thy suppliant free from harm
Claspt in thine everlasting arm.

4 Clouds ant thick darkness are thy throne
Thy wonderful pavilion,
O dart from thence one heav'nly ray,
And then my midnigh shall be day.

5 Thus when the morn in crimson dress,
Break through the windows of the east,
My thankful hymns of praise shall rise,
Like incense of the sacrifice.

Source: A Selection of Psalms and Hymns: done under the appointment of the Philadelphian Association #CCLV

All representative texts • Compare texts ^ top

Author: Thomas Flatman

Flatman, Thomas, poet and miniature painter, was born in London, cir. 1633, and died cir. 1688. He was a barrister of the Inner Temple, but gave most of his time to poetry and painting. He was the author of some Pindaric Odes on the deaths of Prince Rupert, and of Charles II.; and of a prose satire on Richard Cromwell. His Poems & Songs were published in 1674 (3rd edition 1682), and from this volume the following hymns have been transferred to Dr. Martineau's Hymns, 1840, and his Hymns of Praise and Prayer, 1873:— "Awake, my soul, awake, mine eyes " (Morning); “Sweet slumbers, come and chase away" (Evening). The similarity of these hymns to the Morning and Evening hymns of Bp. Ken suggests the possibility that they may have inspired… Go to person page >

^ top