Praise To God
Praise to God, immortal praise,
For the love that crowns our days;
Bounteous source of every joy,
Let thy praise our tongues employ;
For the blessings of the field,
For the stores the gardens yield,
For the vine's exalted juice,
For the generous olive's use;
Flocks that whiten all the plain,
Yellow sheaves of ripened grain;
Clouds that drop their fattening dews,
Suns that temperate warmth diffuse:
All that Spring with bounteous hand
Scatters o'er the smiling land:
All that liberal Autumn pours
From her rich o'erflowing stores:
These to thee, my God, we owe;
Source whence all our blessings flow;
And for these my soul shall raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise.
Yet should rising whirlwinds tear
From its stem the ripening ear;
Should the fig-tree's blasted shoot
Drop her green untimely fruit;
Should the vine put forth no more,
Nor the olive yield her store;
Though the sickening flocks should fall,
And the herds desert the stall;
Should thine altered hand restrain
The early and the latter rain;
Blast each opening bud of joy,
And the rising year destroy:
Yet to thee my soul should raise
Grateful vows, and solemn praise;
And, when every blessing's flown,
Love thee—for thyself alone.
The Unknown God
To learned Athens, led by fame,
As once the man of Tarsus came,
With pity and surprise
Midst idol altars as he stood,
O'er sculptured marble, brass and wood,
He rolled his awful eyes.
But one, apart, his notice caught,
That seemed with higher meaning fraught,
Graved on the wounded stone;
Nor form nor name was there expressed;
Deep reverence filled the musing breast,
Perusing, “To the God unknown.”
Age after age has rolled away,
Altars and thrones have felt decay,
Sages and saints have risen;
And, like a giant roused from sleep,
Man has explored the pathless deep,
And lightnings snatched from heaven.
And many a shrine in dust is laid,
Where kneeling nations homage paid,
By rock, or fount, or grove:
Ephesian Dian sees no more
Her workmen fuse the silver ore,
Nor Capitolian Jove.
E'en Salem's hallowed courts have ceased
With solemn pomps her tribes to feast,
No more the victim bleeds;
To censers filled with rare perfumes,
And vestments from Egyptian looms,
A purer rite succeeds.
Yet still, where'er presumptuous man
His Maker's essence strives to scan,
And lifts his feeble hands,
Though saint and sage their powers unite,
To fathom that abyss of light,
Ah! still that altar stands.
