The God of love my shepherd is,
And he that doth me feed:
While he is mine, and I am his,
What can I want or need?
He leads me to the tender grass,
Where I both feed and rest;
Then to the streams that gently pass:
In both I have the best.
Or if I stray, he doth convert,
And bring my mind in frame:
And all this not for my desert,
But for his holy name.
Yea, in death's shady, black abode
Well may I walk, not fear:
For thou art with me, and thy rod
To guide, thy staff to bear.
Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,
E'en in my enemies' sight;
My head with oil, my cup with wine
Runs over day and night.
Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my days;
And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise.
No marble statue, nor high
Aspiring pyramid, be raised
To lose its head within the sky!
What claim have I to memory
God, be thou only praised!
Thou in a moment canst defeat
The mighty conquests of the proud,
And blast the laurels of the great :
Thou canst make brighter glory set
O' the sudden in a cloud.
How can the feeble works of art
Hold out against the assault of storms? Or how can brass to him impart Sense of surviving fame, whose heart Is now resolved to worms?
Blind folly of triumphing pride
Eternity, why build'st thou here?
Dost thou not see the highest tide
Its humbled stream in the ocean hide,
And ne'er the same appear?
That tide which did its banks o'erflow,
As sent abroad by the angry sea,
To level vastest buildings low,
And all our trophies overthrow,
Ebbs like a thief
And thou who, to preserve thy name,
Leav'st statues in some conquer'd land;
How will posterity scorn fame,
When the idol shall receive a maim,
And lose a foot or hand?
How wilt thou hate thy wars, when he
Who only for his hire did raise
Thy counterfeit in stone, with thee
Shall stand competitor, and be
Perhaps thought worthier praise?
No laurel wreath about my
To thee, my God, all praise, whose law The conquer'd doth, and conqueror bow;
For both dissolve to air, if thou
Thy influence but withdraw.
THE Lord my pasture shall prepare,
And feed me with a shepherd's care;
His presence shall my wants supply,
And guard me with a watchful eye;
My noon-day walks He shall attend,
And all my midnight hours defend.
When in the sultry glebe I faint,
Or on the thirsty mountains pant,
To fertile vales and dewy meads,
My weary wandering steps He leads,
Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow.
Though in the paths of death I tread
With gloomy horrors overspread,
My steadfast heart shall fear no ill;
For thou, O God, art with me still :
Thy friendly crook shall give me aid,
And guide me through the dreadful shade.
Though in a bare and rugged way,
Through devious lonely wilds I stray,
Thy bounty shall my pains beguile;
The barren wilderness shall smile,
With sudden greens and herbage crown'd,
And streams shall murmur all around.
When, rising from the bed of death,
O'erwhelm'd with guilt and fear,
I see my Maker, face to face,
O how shall I appear!
If yet, while pardon may be found,
And mercy may be sought,
My heart with inward horror shrinks,
And trembles at the thought;
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