"Let there be light!" The Eternal spoke,
And from the abyss where darkness rode
The earliest dawn of nature broke,
And light around creation flow'd.
The glad earth smiled to see the day,
The first-born day came blushing in;
The young day smiled to shed its ray
Upon a world untouched by sin.
"Let there be light!" O'er heaven and earth,
The God who first the day-beam pour'd,
Whispered again his fiat forth,
And shed the Gospel's light abroad.
And, like the dawn, its cheering rays
On rich and poor were meant to fall,
Inspiring their Redeemer's praise
In lonely cot and lordly hall.
Then come, when in the Orient first
Flushes the signal light for prayer;
Come with the earliest beams that burst
From God's bright throne of glory there.
Come kneel to Him who through the night
Hath watched above thy sleeping soul,
To Him whose mercies, like his light,
Are shed abroad from pole to pole.