Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Hymn 2 (Praise to God, immortal praise)

PRAISE to God, immortal praise,
For the love that crowns our days;
Bounteous source of every joy,
Let thy praise our tongues employ.

For the blessings of the field,
For the stores the gardens yield,
For the vine's exalted juice,
For the generous olive's use:

Flocks that whiten all the plain,
Yellow sheaves of ripen'd grain;
Clouds that drop their fatt'ning dews,
Suns that temperate warmth diffuse:

All that Spring with bounteous hand
Scatters o'er the smiling land:
All that liberal Autumn pours
From her rich o'erflowing stores:

These to thee, my God, we owe;
Source whence all our blessings flow;
And for these, my soul shall raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise.

Yet should rising whirlwinds tear
From its stem the ripening ear;
Should the fig-tree's blasted shoot
Drop her green untimely fruit;

Should the vine put forth no more,
Nor the olive yield her store;
Though the sick'ning flocks should fall,
And the herds desert the stall;

Should thine alter'd hand restrain
The early and the latter rain;
Blast each opening bud of joy.
And the rising year destroy;

Yet to thee my soul should raise
Grateful vows, and solemn praise;
And, when every blessing's flown,
Love thee—for thy self alone.