Verse 1
Merciful God, to thee we cry,
O think upon us, or we die
The ever-living death!
Lo! By a mighty tempest tost,
Our ship without thine aid is lost,
Lost in the gulph beneath.
Verse 2
The mariners are struck with fear,
And shudder at destruction near,
So high the billows swell;
Ready to o’erwhelm our shatter’d state;
Thy judgments fall with all their weight,
To crush us into hell.
Verse 3
Ah! Wherefore is this evil come,
Shew us, omniscient God, for whom
Thy plagues our church befal:
Give, while we ask, a righteous lot,
And let the guilty soul be caught,
Who brings thy curse on all.
Verse 4
With trembling awe we humbly pray,
Now, now the secret cause display
Of our calamity,
Whose sins have brought thy judgments down?
Alas, my God, the cause I own,
The lot is fall’n on me!
Verse 5
I am the man, the Jonas I,
For me the working waves run high;
For me the curse takes place:
I have encreas’d the nation’s load;
I have call’d down the wrath of God
On all our helpless race.
Verse 6
With guilty unbelieving dread
Long have I from his presence fled,
And shunn’d the sight of heaven:
In vain the pard’ning God pursued;
I would not be by grace subdued;
I would not be forgiven.
Verse 7
I know the tempest roars for me,
Till I am cast into the sea,
Its rage can never cease:
Here then I to my doom submit,
Do with me as thy will sees fit,
But give thy people peace.
Verse 8
Save, Jesu, save the sinking ship,
And lo! I plunge into the deep
Of all thy judgments here:
I fall beneath thy threatnings, Lord;
But let my soul, at last restor’d,
Before thy face appear.
Verse 9
Beneath thine anger’s present weight
I sink, and only deprecate
Thy sorer wrath to come:
Give me at last in thee a part,
And now, in mercy, now avert
The guilty nation’s doom.
Verse 10
O bid the angry waves subside,
Into a calm the tempest chide
By thy supreme command:
Thou in our broken ship remain,
Till ev’ry soul the harbour gain,
And reach the heavenly land.