Nox et tenebrae et nubila

Ye mist and darkness, cloud and storm,
Confus’d creations of the night;
Light enters—morning streaks the sky;
Christ comes,—’tis time ye take your flight.

Pierc’d by the sun’s etherial dart,
Night’s gloomy mass is cleft in twain;
And, in the smiling face of day,
Nature resumes her tints again.

O Christ, we know no sun but Thee!
Shine in our souls divinely bright!
We seek Thee in simplicity;
Through all our senses shed thy light.

A thousand objects all around
In false delusive colours shine;
To purge them clear, we ask, O Lord,
But one immortal beam of thine.

To God the Father glory be,
And to his sole-begotten Son;
The same, O Holy Ghost! to Thee,
While everlasting ages run.