Twas thus in nature’s sleep I lay

’Twas thus in nature’s sleep I lay,
When Christ his Spirit shed:
His Spirit stirr’d me up to pray,
And hover’d o’er my head,
Infusing the first gracious hope
He spread his wings abroad,
And train’d his infant-pupil up
To seek the face of God.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him.”—Deut. xxxii. 11, 12. Introduced in Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 1 (Bristol: Farley, 1762). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 9 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 108.
Publishing: Public Domain