1 Forty days and forty nights
You were fasting in the wild;
Forty days and forty nights
Tempted, and yet undefiled.
2 Shall not we your sorrow share
And from worldly joys abstain,
Fasting with unceasing prayer,
Strong with you to suffer pain?
3 Then if Satan on us press,
Flesh or spirit to assail,
Victor in the wilderness,
Grant we may not faint nor fail!
4 So shall we have peace divine;
Holier gladness ours shall be;
Round us, too, shall angels shine,
Such as served You faithfully.
5 Keep, O keep us, Savior dear,
Ever constant by your side,
That with you we may appear
At th'eternal Eastertide.
Source: Breaking Bread (Vol. 39) #127
First Line: | Forty days and forty nights, Thou wast fasting in the wild |
Title: | Forty Days and Forty Nights |
Author: | George Hunt Smyttan (1856) |
Meter: | 7.7.7.7 |
Language: | English |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
Forty days and forty nights. G. H. Smyttan. [Lent.] First published in the Penny Post, March, 1856 (vol. vi. p. 60), in 9 stanzas of 4 lines, headed "Poetry for Lent; As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing," and signed "G. H. S." In 1861, 6 stanzas were given with alterations in the Rev. F. Pott's Hymns, &c, and repeated in Hymns Ancient & Modern 1861-75; Mrs. Brock's Children's Hymn Book, 1881, and others. Other slightly altered texts are given in the Sarum Hymnal, 1868; the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Church Hymns, 1871, and others. This hymn has extended to a few American collections.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)