| Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | The Rivulet (1871).
VIII. “O Lord, Thou art not fickle” | | By Thomas Toke Lynch (1818–1871) |
| | | O LORD, Thou art not fickle; | |
| Our hope is not in vain; | |
| The harvest for the sickle | |
| Will ripen yet again. | |
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| But though enough be given | 5 |
| For all the world to eat, | |
| Sin with thy love has striven | |
| Its bounty to defeat. | |
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| Were men to one another | |
| As kind as God to all, | 10 |
| Then no man on his brother | |
| For help would vainly call. | |
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| On none for idle wasting | |
| Would honest labour frown; | |
| And none, to riches hasting, | 15 |
| Would tread his neighbour down. | |
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| O, is there one in twenty | |
| With his own lot content, | |
| Though God has bread and plenty | |
| To all the nations sent? | 20 |
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| Till heart to heart is plighted | |
| In faith on heaven above, | |
| Earth’s harvests must be blighted | |
| For want of mutual love. | |
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| No man enough possesses | 25 |
| Until he has to spare; | |
| Possession no man blesses | |
| While self is all his care. | |
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| For blessings on our labour, | |
| O, then, in hope we pray, | 30 |
| When love unto our neighbour | |
| Is ripening every day. | | | | |
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