Thomas Ken (1637–1711), later Bishop of Bath and Wells, wrote this morning hymn while serving as a fellow of Winchester College, and he meant it for the private devotion of schoolboys rather than for the congregation. Public hymn singing was still uncommon in the Church of England of his day, so Ken placed the text in his Manual of Prayers for the scholars of Winchester, charging them to sing the morning and evening hymns in their chambers. The boys’ day began at five in the morning, and this hymn was written for that hour, drawing on the old Latin office hymns and the Prayer Book’s Collect for Grace and using the rising sun to preach God’s creating power and to frame each waking as a small rehearsal of the resurrection. Its final stanza is the doxology sung in countless churches every Lord’s Day: “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.” The text leaked out in a pirated pamphlet in 1692, and forgeries under his name grew so common that his publisher had to warn the public to buy only the genuine copies. The tune MORNING HYMN is the work of François Hippolyte Barthélémon, a musician at a London orphanage.