BPW 320, a hymn I don't think I have ever sung.  Orignally Greek and old enough to be out of copyright:

The King shall come when morning dawns
and light triumphant breaks,
when beauty gilds the eastern hills
and life to joy awakes.

Not as of old a little child,
to bear and fight and die,
but crowned with glory like the sun
that lights the morning sky.

O brighter than the rising morn
when he, victorious, rose,
and left the lonesome place of death,
despite the rage of foes.

O brighter than the glorious morn
shall this fair morning be,
when Christ our King in beauty comes,
and we his face shall see!

The King shall come when morning dawns
and light and beauty brings;
'Hail, Christ the Lord! your people pray,
'Come quickly, King of kings!'

John Brownlie (1857-1925) from Anonymous Greek

This hymn expresses the more traditional, eschatological view of Advent -  focussing on the second coming, the great consummation, the end of time.

Of course, if we take Jesus at his word, no one can predict what time of day this will take place any more than the precise date it will occur.  I have to confess, I am minded towards seeing it as coterminus with the natural end of all things, though as a teenager had a somewhat stupid fascination with the idea of the 'rapture' and regularly asked God to delay it until I could just do x or y that I wanted to achieve first.

Perhaps what I like about the 'dawn' metaphor in this hymn, emerging from a northern hemipsphere context where dawn is a fairly leisurely process (contra equatorial regions where, I am told, it is near instantaneous) is the idea that this is no 'zap pow' arrival, but something glimpsed as darkness slowly shifts into light; something that becomes clearer and nearer and more wonderful as the light increases.

The phrase (it's strictly two words in Aramaic) "Maranatha" is both a please, "Come, Lord" and a promise "the Lord is coming".  In this hymn, I see more of the second, a hopeful yearning for the completion of a process already began.  The King will come when morning dawns... a process already begun and moving gently, imperceptibly to its fulfilment in the brightness of day.

To my surprise there are many videos of this hymn, among which is this gentle choir and orchestra version:

Today's cross referenced hymn is BPW 315 "Joy to the World" an Isaac Watts classic, but with words that can bewilder a 21st century reader.  Even though some updating has been done, we still have, at the end of verse 2:

while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

repeat the sounding joy

That should give any thoughtful singer pause... floods repeating joy...?  Floods, surely are destructive, sweeping away joy... what does this hymn mean?

Etymology, reveals that 'flood' can mean 'flow', so I guess Watts really means rivers, but that would be two syllables and mess up the metre of his hymn.

I recall singing the Kendrick hymn "Shine, Jesus, shine" when I stood with 200 other "women vicars"+ two women rabbis at the end of Downing Street for the Make Poverty History thing... it was still in the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami... how could we sing "flow, river, flow, flood the nations..." - even with grace and mercy?  Floods destroy hope, not bring it. 

Etymologically, Kendrick could have actually said "flood, flood, flood, flood the nations..."

Of course we understand the meataphor, of course we are expressing a desire for the goodness of God to fill the whole of creation... but the language is risky, and unthinking singing can be dangerous.

Perhaps then, we recognise the power of joy, grace, mercy within the flood, within the overwhelming horror, and the transformative potential it brings.

Perhaps, too, we might reword the hymn thus:

Rivers and fields, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy...

It's hard to beat a good flashmob - and this was one of the first I saw, back in the day...