Verse 1
O God, thou bottomless abyss,
Thee to perfection who can know?
O height immense! What words suffice
Thy countless attributes to show:
Unfathomable depths thou art!
I plunge me in thy mercy’s sea;
Void of true wisdom is my heart,
With love embrace and cover me.
While thee all-infinite I set
By FAITH before my ravish’d eye,
My weakness bends beneath the weight,
O’erpower’d I sink, I faint, I die.

Verse 2
Eternity thy fountain was,
Which, like thee, no beginning knew;
Thou wast e’er time began his race,
Ere glow’d with stars th’ ethereal blue:
Greatness unspeakable is thine,
Greatness, whose undiminish’d ray,
When short-liv’d worlds are lost, shall shine,
When earth and heav’n are fled away.
Unchangeable, all-perfect Lord,
Essential life’s unbounded sea,
What lives and moves, lives by thy word,
It lives, and moves, and is from thee.

Verse 3
Thy parent hand, thy forming skill
Firm fix’d this universal chain;
Else empty, barren darkness still
Had held his unmolested reign:
Whate’er in earth, or sea or sky
Or shuns, or meets the wand’ring thought,
Escapes or strikes the searching eye,
By thee was to perfection brought.
High is thy pow’r above all height:
Whate’er thy will decrees is done:
Thy wisdom equal to thy might
Only to thee, O God, is known.

Verse 4
Heaven’s glory is thy awful throne,
Yet earth partakes thy gracious sway;
Vain man! Thy wisdom, folly own,
Lost is thy reason’s feeble ray.
What his dim eye could never see,
Is plain and naked to thy sight;
What thickest darkness veils, to thee
Shines clearly as the morning light.
In light thou dwell’st: light that no shade
No variation ever knew;
And heav’n and hell stand all display’d,
And open to thy piercing view.

Verse 5
Thou, true and only God, lead’st forth
Th’ immortal armies of the sky.
Thou laugh’st to scorn the gods of earth;
Thou thunder’st, and amaz’d they fly.
With down-cast eye th’ angelick choir
Appear before thy awful face,
Trembling they strike the golden lyre,
And thro’ heav’ns vault resound thy praise.
In earth, in heav’n, in all thou art:
The conscious creature feels thy nod,
Whose forming hand on every part
Imprest the image of its God.

Verse 6
Thine, Lord, is wisdom, thine alone;
Justice, and truth before thee stand;
Yet nearer to thy sacred throne
Mercy with-holds thy lifted hand.
Each ev’ning shews thy tender love,
Each rising morn thy plenteous grace;
Thy waken’d wrath doth slowly move,
Thy willing mercy flies apace.
To thy benign, indulgent care,
Father, this light, this breath we owe,
And all we have, and all we are
From thee, great source of being flow.

Verse 7
Parent of good, thy bounteous hand
Incessant blessings down distills,
And all in air, or sea, or land
With plenteous food and gladness fills.
All things in thee live, move, and are,
Thy pow’r infus’d doth all sustain;
Ev’n those thy daily favours share
Who thankless spurn thy easy reign.
Thy sun thou bidst his genial ray
Alike on all impartial pour;
To all who hate or bless thy sway
Thou bidst descend the fruitful show’r.

Verse 8
Yet while at length, who scorn’d thy might
Shall feel thee a consuming fire,
How sweet the joys, the crown how bright
Of those who to thy love aspire!
All creatures praise th’ eternal name!
Ye hosts that to his courts belong,
Cherubic quires, seraphic flames,
Awake the everlasting song.
Thrice holy, thine the kingdom is,
The pow’r omnipotent is thine,
And when created nature dies
Thy never-ceasing glories shine.