The Written Word

THE STARRY firmament on high,

And all the glories of the sky,

Yet shine not to Thy praise, O Lord,

So brightly as Thy written word.

The hopes that holy word supplies,

Its truths divine and precepts wise,

In each a heavenly beam I see,

And every beam conducts to Thee.

When, taught by painful proof to know

That all is vanity below,

The sinner roams from comfort far,

And looks in vain for sun or star;

Soft gleaming then those lights divine,

Through all the cheerless darkness shine,

And sweetly to the ravished eye

Disclose the dayspring from on high.

Almighty Lord, the sun shall fail,

The moon forget her nightly tale,

And deepest silence hush on high,

The radiant chorus of the sky;

But, fixed for everlasting years,

Unmoved amid the wreck of spheres,

Thy word shall shine in cloudless day,

When heaven and earth have passed away.