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Words: John Greenleaf Whittier, circa 1850. The lyrics come from Whittier's poem "Seedtime and Harvest" in Miscellaneous Poems.
Music: "Ernan," Lowell Mason, 1850
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Courtesy of Yale Divinity Library |
It may not be our lot to wield
The sickle in the ripened field;
Nor ours to hear, on summer eves,
The reaper's song among the sheaves.
Yet where our duty's task is wrought
In unison with God's great thought
The near and future blend in one,
And whatsoe'er is willed, is done.
And ours the grateful service whence
Comes, day by day, the recompense;
The hope, the trust, the purpose stayed,
The fountain, and the noonday shade.
And were this lift the utmost span,
The only end and aim of man,
Better the toil of fields like these
Than waking dream and slotfhful ease.
But life, though falling like our grain,
Like that revives and springs again;
And, early called, how blest are they
Who wait in heaven, their harvest day!
Hymns supplied through the gracious generosity of the Cyber Hymnal Website