My reigns, my fab­ric’s ev­ery part,
O Lord, the won­ders of Thy art
Proclaim, and prompt my will­ing tongue
To me­di­tate the grate­ful song:
With deep­est awe my thought this frame
Surveys—I trem­ble that I am.

While yet a stran­ger to the day
Within the burd­ened womb I lay,
My bones, fa­mil­iar to Thy view,
By just de­grees to firm­ness grew:
Thy pow­er my li­nea­ments be­gan,
To shapes pre­scribed the tex­ture ran.

Day to suc­ceed­ing day con­signed
Th’unfinished birth; Thy migh­ty mind
Each limb, each nerve, ere yet they were,
Contemplated dis­tinct and clear;
Those nerves Thy cu­ri­ous fin­ger spun,
Those limbs it fa­shioned one by one.

And, as Thy pen in fair de­sign
Traced on Thy book each sha­do­wy line,
Thy hand­maid Na­ture read them there,
And made the grow­ing work her care,
Conformed it to th’un­err­ing plan,
And gra­du­al wrought me in­to man.