Music & HymnsCome, My Soul, Thou Must Be Waking

Some may know the story of that German nobleman whose life had been distinguished alike by genius and worldly distinction, and by Christian holiness; and who, in the last morning of his life, when the dawn broke into his sick chamber, prayed that he might be supported to the window, and might look once again upon the rising sun. After looking steadily at it for some time, he cried out, "Oh! if the appearance of this earthly and created thing is so beautiful and quickening, how much more shall I be enraptured at the sight of the unspeakable glory of the Creator Himself." That was the feeling of a man whose sense of earthly beauty had all the keenness of a poet's enthusiasm, but who, withal, had in his greatest health and vigour preserved the consciousness that his life was hid with Christ in God; that the things seen, how beautiful soever, were as nothing to the things which are not seen.

Catherine Winkworth translated von Canitz' lyrics as "Come My Soul, Awake, 'Tis Morning," in her Lyra Germanica, 1855. Yet another translation appeared in the British Magazine, July 1838.

Music: "Haydn," arranged from Franz Joseph Haydn, 1791

• "Lux Prima," John Stainer, 1872