Nos servet a nocentibus.
Now the star of morning light
Rises on the rear of night;
Suppliant to our God we pray,
From ills to guard us through this day.
Rising before the others, he had little to do except apply a candle to a large fagot, in winter, which had been already laid.
Ken composed a devotional Manual for the use of the Winchester scholars; but his most interesting compositions are those affecting and beautiful hymns which were sung by himself, and written to be sung in the chambers of the boys, before chapel in the morning, and before they lay down on their small boarded beds at night. Of Ken’s own custom of singing his hymn to the Creator at the earliest dawn, Hawkins, his biographer, relates, “that neither his (Ken’s) study might be the aggressor on his hours of instruction, nor what he judged duty prevent his improvement, he strictly accustomed himself to but one hour’s sleep, which obliged him to rise at one or two o’clock in the morning, or sometimes earlier; and he seemed to go to rest with no other purpose than the refreshing and enabling him with more vigour and cheerfulness to sing his Morning Hymn, as he used to do, to his lute, before he put on his clothes.” When he composed those delicious hymns, he was in the fresh morn of life; and who does not feel his heart in unison with that delightful season, when such a strain as this is heard?
Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth, and early rise