February 3, 1861 (Sunday)

"Yet were it but an insect note...."

(For Sunday, I ran into an article in the Ladies' Repository entitled To Whom, O Lord by Emily J. Adams.)  ----hat tip The Long Recall--The American Interest.   She wrote a poem praising the Lord. 

To Whom, O Lord, If Not To Thee?

To whom, O Lord, if not to thee,

Should my weak harp be strung?

What other name, what other praise

Were worthy to be sung?

For though the heaven's blue vaulted dome,

Outstretching o'er us far,

May wake our raptures, thine the praise,

For thine the heavens are.

Though morn her bannered glories hath

Along the skies unrolled,

Or radiant noon pours from on high

Her meeting waves of gold,

Or purple eve, or starry night

With matchless splendors shine,

Yet crimson morn, and golden noon,

And starry night are thine.

The rivers wrap the emerald vales

About like shining bands;

The proud seas in wild tempests rise,

Or, rippling, kiss the sands;

And nature flings o'er all the earth

Her glories wide and free;

Yet what are these, O Lord, save as

They point our souls to thee?

And what is man?  O, what, with all

His little vaunted power?

What but a puny, fragile thing,

The insect of an hour?

And what the reason that he boasts

With proud, unbended knee?

What but a transient, borrowed gleam

Reflected still from thee?

Then unto whom, save unto thee,

Should my weak harp be strung?

What other name, what other praise

Were worthy to be sung?

And though were inspiration poured

Along each trembling string

In rolling floods, and had we each

A thousand tongues to sing.

And earth and heaven itself were joined,

An endless song to swell,

Yet were it but an insect note

Of all thy power to tell;

Thy power that, still upholding all

In earth and heaven above,

Can only find its equal in

Thy never-ending love.