The Book of God

Horatius Bonar (1808–1889)

THY thoughts are here, my God,

Expressed in words divine,

The utterance of heavenly lips

In every sacred line.

Across the ages they

Have reached us from afar,

Than the bright gold more golden they,

Purer than purest star.

More durable they stand

Than the eternal hills;

Far sweeter and more musical

Than music of earth’s rills.

Fairer in their fair hues

Than the fresh flowers of earth,

More fragrant than the fragrant climes

Where odors have their birth.

Each word of thine a gem

From the celestial mines,

A sunbeam from that holy heaven

Where holy sunlight shines.

Thine, thine, this book, though given

In man’s poor human speech,

Telling of things unseen, unheard,

Beyond all human reach.

No strength it craves or needs

From this world’s wisdom vain;

No filling up from human wells,

Or sublunary rain.

No light from sons of time,

Nor brilliance from its gold;

It sparkles with its own glad light,

As in the ages old.

A thousand hammers keen,

With fiery force and strain,

Brought down on it in rage and hate,

Have struck this gem in vain.

Against this sea-swept rock

Ten thousand storms their will

Of foam and rage have wildly spent;

It lifts its calm face still.

It standeth and will stand,

Without or change or age,

The word of majesty and light,

The church’s heritage.