| |
| 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, | 5 |
| 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 ripen’d grain; | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| From her rich o’er-flowing 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. | 20 |
| |
| 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, | 25 |
| Nor the olive yield her store | |
| Though the sickening flocks should fall, | |
| And the herds desert the stall; | |
| |
| Should Thine alter’d hand restrain | |
| The early and the latter rain; | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| Love Thee—for Thyself alone. | |
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