Behold the sun that seemed but now

Behold the sun that seemed but now. George Wither* (1588-1667). First published in Haleluiah, or Britan’s second Remembrancer (1641), in the section ‘Hymns Occasionall’. Wither hoped, as his prefatory note stated, that a meditation at sunset on the lines of this hymn ‘may perhaps expel unprofitable musings, and arm against the terrors of approaching darkness’: hence its theme of the decline or sunset of physical life, and the hope of spiritual life: Behold the sun that seemed but now  Enthronèd overhead,Beginning to decline below  This globe whereon we tread;And he, whom yet we look upon  With comfort and delight,Will quite depart from hence anon,  And leave us to the night. Thus time,...