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;
O 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 ravished eye,
My weakness bends beneath the weight;
O�erpowered I sink, I faint, I die.
Eternity Thy fountain was,
Which, like Thee, no beginning knew;
Thou wast ere time began his race,
Ere glowed with stars the ethereal blue.
Greatness unspeakable is Thine,
Greatness, whose undiminished ray,
When short-lived worlds are lost, shall shine,
When earth and Heaven 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.
Thy parent-hand, Thy forming skill,
Firm fixed 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 wandering thought,
Escapes or strikes the searching eye,
By Thee was to perfection brought.
High is Thy power above all height,
Whate�er Thy will decrees is done;
Thy wisdom, equal to Thy might,
Only to Thee, O God, is known!
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 our 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;
Heaven, earth, and hell, stand all displayed,
And open to Thy piercing view.
