Lest Your image be effaced
Through the tempter's clinging mesh,
Through the weakness of the flesh;
Lest Your lifeblood go to waste,
Come, Lord Jesus; come with haste!
Will You find faith on the earth?
Struggling in the pangs of birth,
All creation groans and cries;
Yet mankind Your name denies.
Gift above all gifts in worth,
Will You find faith on the earth?
Burden of the church's song,
Even now, is: "Lord, how long?"
Must the faithful undergo
More than we can bear of woe?
Hated, ridiculed, disgraced,
Pray we rather: come with haste!
In Your root-stock we are graft,
Thirsting for Your lively draught;
Born again, though not by womb—
Slain, we share Your broken tomb.
At the font by You embraced,
We first bid You: come with haste!
Come! with Your absolving breath,
Blow into this world of death;
Kindle cleansing fire and light
In this generation's night;
Of Your Spirit let us taste.
Come, Lord Jesus; come with haste!
Flesh that bore our flesh's meed,
Now to us be bread indeed;
Blood once sprinkled o'er our sin,
Now true drink, our weal to win.
Lips whereon this seal is placed
Now entreat You: come with haste!
Come where many, come where few
Gather to commune in You;
Come where souls confess and pray;
Come to share our dying day;
And when earth's last heat is raced,
Come, Lord Jesus; come with haste!
4 comments:
I like it!
I think it would work well with the tune for "Thine forever, God of Love". What tune did you have in mind?
I found a good eight or ten alternatives in different hymnals, but the one most likely to be familiar to you are the tunes to TLH 11 and TLH 20.
Wouldn't "Thine forever" run out of music before the stanzas ran out of words?
I actually just repeated the first two lines before coming to the last two. I like the tune with the words so much that I did the doubling of the first lines without even realizing I was butchering the melody.
I think the tune for TLH 20 would work well. Actually, I like them both (both you suggested). I suspect that either would better than the other 7.7.7.7.7.7 tunes in TLH.
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