O Lord my God, how great art thou

Representative Text

1. O Lord my God! how great art Thou!
With honor and with glory crowned;
Light’s dazzling splendors veil Thy brow,
And gird the universe around.

2. Spirits and angels Thou hast made;
Thy ministers a flaming fire;
By Thee were earth’s foundations laid;
At Thy rebuke the floods retire.

3. Thine are the fountains of the deep;
By Thee their waters swell or fail;
Up to the mountain’s summit creep,
Or shrink beneath the lowly vale.

4. Thy fingers mark their utmost found;
That bound the waters may not pass;
Their moisture swells the teeming ground,
And paints the valleys o’er with grass.

5. The waving harvest, Lord, is Thine;
The vineyard, and the olive’s juice;
Corn, wine, and oil, by Thee combine,
Life, gladness, beauty, produce.

6. The moon for seasons Thou hast made,
The sun for change of day and night;
Of darkness Thine the deepest shade,
And Thine the day’s meridian light.

7. O Lord, Thy works are all divine;
In wisdom hast Thou made them all;
Earth’s teeming multitudes are Thine;
Thine—peopled oceans great and small.

8. All these on Thee for life depend;
Thy Spirit speaks, and they are born;
They gather what Thy bounties send;
Thy hand of plenty fills the horn.

9. Thy face is hidden—they turn pale,
With terror quake, with anguish burn;
Their breath Thou givest to the gale;
They die, and to their dust return.

10. And Thou, my soul, with pure delight,
Thy voice to bless thy Maker raise;
His praise let morning sing to night,
And night to morn repeat His praise.

Source: The Cyber Hymnal #5113

Author: John Quincy Adams

Adams, John Quincy. (Braintree, Mass., July 11, 1767-February 21, 1848, Washington, D.C.). Most of Adams' verse, both religious and secular, was written after he had left the Presidency. In his later years he composed a metrical version of the Psalms, best described as a free rendering in fairly good verse of what he felt was the essential idea of each Psalm. When his minister, William P. Lunt, of the First Parish, (Unitarian), Quincy, Mass., undertook the preparation of his hymn book The Christian Psalter, Mrs. Adams put the manuscript of her husband's metrical Psalms into Lunt's hands, and the latter included 17 of them in his book, and five other hymns by his distinguished parishioner. The effect on Adams is recorded in a moving entr… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: O Lord my God, how great art thou
Author: John Quincy Adams
Copyright: Public Domain

Tune

HAMBURG

Lowell Mason (PHH 96) composed HAMBURG (named after the German city) in 1824. The tune was published in the 1825 edition of Mason's Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church Music. Mason indicated that the tune was based on a chant in the first Gregorian tone. HAMBURG is a very simple tune with…

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The Cyber Hymnal #5113
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The Cyber Hymnal #5113

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