Hymn II.

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.

*Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat, the flocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

Habakkuk, iii.17,18.

Text: Poems by Anna Laetitia Barbauld. New Ed. (London: Printed for Joseph Johnson, St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1792), pp. 115-17.