Sometimes a Light Surprises
This arrangement for baritone voice sets William Cowper’s 1779 text “Sometimes a Light Surprises” with the traditional Irish tune SALLEY GARDENS.
Cowper was an Anglican hymnwriter who experienced pronounced mental illness that resulted in his institutionalization. Despite suspicions of his own eternal damnation, Cowper was a prolific writer who penned texts in support of the Abolition movement and originated the phrase “God moves in mysterious ways.”
This arrangement for baritone voice sets William Cowper’s 1779 text “Sometimes a Light Surprises” with the traditional Irish tune SALLEY GARDENS.
Text:
1. Sometimes a light surprises
Believers while they sing;
Is is the Lord who rises
With healing in his wings;
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining
To cheer it after rain.
2. In holy contemplation,
We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God's salvation,
And find it ever new;
Set free from present sorrow,
We cheerfully can say,
E'en let th'unknown to tomorrow
Bring with it what it may.
3. It can bring with it nothing
But he will bear us through;
Who gives the lilies clothing
Will clothe his people, too;
Beneath the spreading heavens,
No creature is not fed,
And he who feeds the ravens
Will give his children bread.
4. The vine, nor fig tree neither,
Their wonted fruit should bear,
Tho' all the fields should wither,
Nor flocks, nor herds be there;
Yet God the same abiding,
His praise shall tune my voice,
For while in him confiding,
I cannot but rejoice.
