Tremendous Lord of earth, and skies,
Most holy, high, and just,
We fall before Thy glo­ri­ous eyes,
And hide us in the dust:
Thine an­ger’s long sus­pend­ed stroke
With deep­est awe we feel,
And trem­ble on, so late­ly shook
Over the mouth of hell.

Appalled, o’er­whelmed with con­scious fear,
Beneath Thy frown we mourn,
And shud­der at the judg­ment near,
And dread its swift re­turn.
So oft, and ter­ri­bly re­proved,
Our land is warned in vain,
For oh! the cause is un­re­moved,
The sin doth still re­main.

The crowd, the poor un­think­ing crowd,
Refuse Thy hand to see,
They will not hear Thy loud­est rod,
They will not turn to Thee.
As with ju­di­cial blind­ness struck,
They all Thy signs des­pise,
Harden their hearts yet more, and mock
The an­ger of the skies.

But blind­er still, the rich and great
In wick­ed­ness ex­cel,
And revel on the brink of fate,
And sport, and dance to hell.
Regardless of Thy smile or frown,
Their plea­sures they require,
And sink with gay in­dif­fer­ence down
To ev­er­last­ing fire.

But O! Thou dread­ful right­eous Lord,
The pray­ing rem­nant spare,
The men that trem­ble at Thy word,
And see the com­ing snare:
Our land if yet again Thou shake,
Or ut­ter­ly break down,
A mer­ci­ful dis­tinct­ion make,
And strong­ly save Thine own.

If earth its mouth must op­en wide,
To swal­low up its prey,
Jesu, Thy faith­ful people hide
In that vin­dict­ive day:
Firm in the uni­ver­sal shock
We shall not then re­move,
Safe in the clefts of Is­ra­el’s Rock,
Our Lord’s ex­pir­ing love.