Now all the woods are sleep­ing,
And night and still­ness creep­ing
O’er ci­ty, man, and beast;
But thou, my heart, awake thee,
To pray­er awhile be­take thee,
And praise thy mak­er ere thou rest.

O sun, where art thou van­ished?
The night thy reign hath ban­ished,
Thy an­cient foe, the night.
Farewell, a bright­er glo­ry
My Je­sus shed­deth o’er me,
All clear with­in me shines His light.

The last faint beam is go­ing,
The gold­en stars are glow­ing
In yon­der dark-blue deep;
And such the glo­ry give­n
When called of God to Hea­ven,
On earth no more we pine and weep.

The bo­dy hastes to slum­ber,
These gar­ments now but cum­ber;
And as I lay them by
I pon­der how the spir­it
Puts off the flesh t’in­her­it
A shin­ing robe with Christ on high.

Now thought and la­bor ceas­es,
For night the tired re­leas­es
And bids sweet rest be­gin:
My heart, there comes a mor­row
Shall set thee free from sor­row
And all the drea­ry toil of sin.

Ye ach­ing limbs! now rest you,
For toil hath sore op­pressed you,
Lie down, my wea­ry head:
A sleep shall once o’er­take you
From which earth ne’er shall wake you,
Within a nar­row­er, cold­er bed.

My hea­vy eyes are clos­ing,
When I lie deep re­pos­ing—
O soul and bo­dy, where are ye?
To help­less sleep I yield them,
O let Thy mer­cy shield them,
Thou sleep­less Eye, their guard­ian be!

My Je­sus, stay Thou by me,
And let no foe come nigh me,
Safe shel­tered by Thy wing;
But would the foe alarm me,
O let him ne­ver harm me,
But still Thine an­gels round me sing!

My loved ones, rest se­cure­ly,
From ev­ery per­il sure­ly
Our God will guard your heads;
And hap­py slum­bers send you,
And bid His hosts at­tend you,
And gold­en-armed watch o’er your beds.