Sweet is the sunlight after rain

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Sweet is the sunlight after rain

Author: William M. Punshon
Published in 15 hymnals

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Representative Text

1 Sweet is the sunlight after rain,
And sweet the sleep which follows pain;
And sweetly steals the Sabbath rest
Upon the world's work-wearied breast.

2 Of heaven the sign, of earth the calm;
The poor man's birthright and his balm;
God's witness of celestial things;
A sun with healing in its wings.

3 New rising in this gospel time,
And in its sevenfold light sublime,
Blest day of God! we hail its dawn,
To gratitude and worship drawn.

4 O nought of gloom and nought of pride
Should with the sacred hours abide;
At work for God, in loved employ,
We lose the duty in the joy.

5 Breathe on us, Lord! our sins forgive,
And make us strong in faith to live;
Our utmost, sorest need supply,
And make us strong in faith to die.

Source: Methodist Hymn and Tune Book: official hymn book of the Methodist Church #249

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Author: William M. Punshon

Punshon, William Morley, LL.D. This greatly and justly honoured name of recent Wesleyan Methodism finds a tiny niche in this work from a thin poetic vein, which gave him much enjoyment, if its working out must be confessed to have yielded nothing of permanent value for hymnody, or at all comparable with his splendid service to the Christian Church as preacher and lecturer. His contributions to J. Lyth's Wild Flowers, or, a Selection of Original Poetry (1843), though reprinted in 1846, speedily withered as "flowers" in a hortus siccus. His Lays of Hope (1853) was no advance on the Wild Flowers. His Sabbath Chimes, or, Meditations in Verse for the Sundays of a Year (1867), suggested inevitable comparisons with Keble's classic of the Christi… Go to person page >

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