Classic Poem

1.

O Reach me, Lord, thy aiding pow'r,
While hostile troops my strength devour;
My strength devour, and day by day
With fiercest threats my heart dismay:
Yet Trust in Thee my spirit chears,
And checks my sighs, and wipes my tears.

2.

Thy promise, Lord, to notes of praise
In each distress my song shall raise;
Thy word my breast with joy shall swell,
And all my anxious cares dispel:
God in my cause his arm will rear;
And Man, shall Man excite my fear?

3.

My words they torture; and, their thought
Each hour with deepest malice fraught,
In impious council nightly meet,
To watch, with murth'rous aim, my feet,
And guileful, onward as I tread,
Beside my path their nets outspread.

4.

On wrong, and superstition vain,
Their hope the frantic tribe sustain;
But teach them, Lord, thy wrath to know,
And quell the insults of my soe;
O let thine arm their crimes repay,
Who seek my footsteps to betray.

5.

My grief to thine observing eye,
As chas'd from realm to realm I fly,
In full display, great God, appears;
O treasure in thy vase my tears:
But see! already by thy hand
Recorded in thy book they stand.

6.

Whene'er to Thee, my God, I cry,
Secure of help the fight I try,
For thou thine aid, when ask'd, wilt give,
And teach my fainting hope to live;
While hosts beneath my falchion bleed,
And back with headlong flight recede.

7.

Thy promise, Lord, to notes of praise
In each distress my song shall raise;
Thy word my breast with joy shall swell,
Thy promise, Lord, my woes dispel:
God in my cause his arm will rear;
And Man, shall Man excite my fear?

8.

Their thanks, their vows, (thy just demand,)
My lips shall yield: Thy fav'ring hand
My feet from error, from the grave
My fainting soul, has deign'd to save,
And bids me still, to Thee allied,
Within the land of life reside.