“THE LIVELONG night we’ve toiled in vain, | |
| But at Thy gracious word | |
| I will let down the net again: | |
| Do Thou Thy will, O Lord!” | |
| |
| So spake the weary fisher, spent | 5 |
| With bootless darkling toil, | |
| Yet on his Master’s bidding bent | |
| For love, and not for spoil. | |
| |
| So day by day and week by week, | |
| In sad and weary thought, | 10 |
| They muse, whom God hath sent to seek | |
| The souls His Christ hath bought. | |
| |
| For not upon a tranquil lake | |
| Our pleasant task we ply, | |
| Where all along our glistening wake | 15 |
| The softest moonbeams lie; | |
| |
| Where rippling wave and dashing oar | |
| Our midnight chant attend, | |
| Or whispering palm-leaves from the shore | |
| With midnight silence blend. | 20 |
| |
| Sweet thoughts of peace! ye may not last: | |
| Too soon some ruder sound | |
| Calls us from where ye soar so fast | |
| Back to our earthly round. | |
| |
| For wildest storms our ocean sweep: | 25 |
| No anchor but the Cross | |
| Might hold; and oft the thankless deep | |
| Turns all our toil to loss. | |
| |
| Full many a dreary, anxious hour, | |
| We watch our nets alone, | 30 |
| In drenching spray and driving shower, | |
| And hear the night-bird’s moan. | |
| |
| At morn we look, and nought is there; | |
| Sad dawn of cheerless day! | |
| Who then from pining and despair | 35 |
| The sickening heart can stay? | |
| |
| There is a stay—and we are strong; | |
| Our Master is at hand, | |
| To cheer our solitary song, | |
| And guide us to the strand. | 40 |
| |
| In His own time; but yet awhile | |
| Our bark at sea must ride; | |
| Cast after cast, by force or guile, | |
| All waters must be tried. | |
| |
| By blameless guile or gentle force, | 45 |
| As when He deign’d to teach | |
| (The lode-star of our Christian course) | |
| Upon this sacred beach. | |
| |
| Should e’er Thy wonder-working grace | |
| Triumph by our weak arm, | 50 |
| Let not our sinful fancy trace | |
| Aught human in the charm. | |
| |
| To our own nets 1 ne’er bow we down, | |
| Lest on the eternal shore | |
| The angels, while our draught they own, | 55 |
| Reject us evermore | |
| |
| Or, if for our unworthiness | |
| Toil, prayer, and watching fail, | |
| In disappointment Thou canst bless, | |
| So love at heart prevail. | 60 |
