Harriet Beecher Stowe
1811-1896 19th century
The early-morning prayer that asks for nothing but a presence.
Who was Harriet Beecher Stowe?
The seventh child of a Calvinist preacher, married to a poor biblical scholar, mother of seven, she wrote at night on a corner of the table. She lost her small son Charley to cholera in 1849, and later her son Henry, drowned at nineteen. In those years she wrote the anti-slavery novel that made her famous worldwide, and whose legacy is still argued over, and the hymns, which speak of nothing but a presence held at daybreak.
In their own words
Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh, when the bird waketh, and the shadows flee.
Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows, the solemn hush of nature newly born; alone with Thee in breathless adoration.
So shall it be at last, in that bright morning when the soul waketh, and life's shadows flee.