‘…the aching beauty of Thomas Campion’s verse', The Sixteen.
 
Dr. Thomas Campion was born in 1567 and lived in a rich period for Renaissance choral music, during Elizabeth I’s reign (r. 1558-1603). Campion was a younger contemporary of English composers John Dowland, Peter Philips and Thomas Morley; Tomkins, Wilbye, Weelkes and Gibbons were around ten years younger than Campion.
 
His best-known choral work is the two-verse Never weather-beaten sail. The words to that partsong, written by Thomas Campion, were used by Sir Hubert Parry in the third piece in his Songs of Farewell set of anthems. 
 
Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore.
Never tired pilgrim's limbs affected slumber more,
Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast:
O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest.
 
Ever blooming are the joys of Heaven's high Paradise.
Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:
Glory there the sun outshines whose beams the blessed only see:
O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to thee!
 
Listen here:
YouTube - Stile Antico, live recording 2020: 
https://youtu.be/R1F_OTOPSGc?si=n-bp7ZpuRTwMdE6p
 
Thomas Campion was a lyric poet, musician, composer and physician. He set over 100 of his poems to music as songs and included them in several masques (dramatic entertainments). His parents died young and he spent his teenage years studying music and history in Cambridge; later he enrolled in law school in London and also gained a degree in medicine at the University of Caen. Working with the royal lute player, Philip Rosseter, they published Two Bookes of Ayres around 1613, setting his verses to music. His ayres are said to have been regularly sung for the pleasure of King James I, the first Stuart King of England, r.1603-1625). Campion died suddenly, aged 53, probably from the plague that was rampant in London during 1620.
 
Campion wrote the words to the four airs in this Fullscore edition, including Author of Light:
 
Author of light, revive my dying sprite!
Redeem it from the snares of all-confounding night ;
          Lord, light me to Thy blessed way,
For blind with worldly vain desires, I wander as a stray.
Sun and moon, stars and under-lights I see ;
But all their glorious beams are mists and darkness,
               being compar'd to thee.
 
Fountain of health, my soul's deep wounds recure!
Sweet showers of pity rain, wash my uncleanness pure:
          One drop of Thy desired grace
The faint and fading heart can raise, and in joy's bosom place.
Sin and death, hell and tempting fiends may rage,
But God His own will guard, and their sharp pains
               and grief in time assuage.
 
Listen here:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6jhauFLB6c
 
All four pieces were first published in Two Bookes of Ayres, Booke 1 (1613). The books contain ‘ayres’ for a varying number of singers, with part books for up to four, accompanied by the lute. 
 
 Tune thy music to thy heart;
 Sing thy joy with thanks, and so thy sorrow.
 Though devotion needs not art,
 Sometime of the poor the rich may borrow.
 
 Strive not yet for curious ways;
 Concord pleaseth more the less 'tis strained.
 Zeal affects not outward praise,
 Only strives to show a love unfeigned.
 
 Love can wondrous things effect,
 Sweetest sacrifice all wrath appeasing.
 Love the Highest doth respect,
 Love alone to Him is ever pleasing.
 
Listen here:
YouTube: https://youtu.be/bh3cclW12Dw
 
1.  Sing a song of joy!
Praise our God with mirth.
His flock who can destroy?
Is he not Lord of heav'n and earth?
 
2.  Sing we then secure,
Tuning well our strings,
With voice as echo pure
Let us renown the King of Kings,
 
3.  First who taught the day
From the East to rise;
Whom doth the sun obey
When in the seas his glory dies.
 
4.  He the stars directs,
That in order stand.
Who heav'n and earth protects
But he that fram'd them with his hand?
 
6.  All that dread his name,
And his hests observe,
His arm will shield from shame,
Their steps from truth shall never swerve.
 
7.  Let us then rejoice,
Sounding loud his praise,
So will he hear our voice,
And bless on earth our peaceful days.
 
Listen on YouTube - Clare College, Cambridge: https://youtu.be/bZhKkDm-hjw
 
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The painting of Ellen Maurice (1578-1626) on the cover of this Fullscore publication is by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (1561-1636), a Flemish painter who fled to the UK to escape Protestant persecution.  (Source: The Met, NYC.) Gheeraerts is most well known for The Ditchley portrait (c. 1592 of Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603), in which she poses full-length on a global of the world. It is displayed in The National Portrait Gallery, London.
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02079/Queen-Elizabeth-I-The-Ditchley-portrait