Lord of earth, Thy forming hand

Representative Text

1. Lord of earth, Thy forming hand,
Well this beauteous frame hath planned,
Woods that wave, and hills that tower,
Ocean rolling in his power;
Yet amidst this scene so fair,
Should I cease thy smile to share,
What were all its joys to me?
Whom have I on earth but Thee?

2. Lord of Heaven, beyond our sight
Shines a world of purer light;
There in love’s unclouded reign,
Severed friends shall meet again:
O that world is passing fair!
Yet, if Thou wert absent there,
What were all its joys to me?
Whom have I in Heaven but Thee?

3. Lord of earth and Heaven, my breast
Seeks in Thee its only rest;
I was lost; Thy accents mild
Homeward lured Thy wandering child:
O if once Thy smile divine
Ceased upon my soul to shine,
What were earth or Heaven to me?
Whom have in each but Thee?

Source: The Cyber Hymnal #3625

Author: Robert Grant

Robert Grant (b. Bengal, India, 1779; d. Dalpoorie, India, 1838) was influenced in writing this text by William Kethe’s paraphrase of Psalm 104 in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter (1561). Grant’s text was first published in Edward Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody (1833) with several unauthorized alterations. In 1835 his original six-stanza text was published in Henry Elliott’s Psalm and Hymns (The original stanza 3 was omitted in Lift Up Your Hearts). Of Scottish ancestry, Grant was born in India, where his father was a director of the East India Company. He attended Magdalen College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1807. He had a distinguished public career a Governor of Bombay and as a member of the British Parliament, where… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: Lord of earth, Thy forming hand
Author: Robert Grant
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

Lord of earth, Thy forming hand. Sir B. Grant. [God the Creator and Preserver.] Appeared in H. V. Elliott's Psalms & Hymns, &c, 1835, in 3 stanzas of 12 lines, and again in Lord Glenelg's edition of Grant's Sacred Poems, 1839, No. 3. It is based on Psalms lxxiii. 25. It is in common use in Great Britain and America.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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The Cyber Hymnal #3625

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