p. 1 | The Forty-Second Psalm

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 3, 1903

The Forty-Second Psalm

By N. F. S. Grundtvig; C. Deving

N. F. S. GRUNDTVIG, 1812

As after the water-brooks panteth The hart, when it sinks in the chase, So thirsteth my soul, as it fainteth, For Thee, O my God, and Thy Grace; For Thou art the fount ever-living, And fain I would drink, O be giving The water of life unto me!

By day and by night in her anguish My soul is lamenting in woe; O Lord, in my grief I must languish, No counsel, no help do I know; When shall I Thy mercy awaken? When shall I, the poor and forsaken, Before Thee appear, O my God?

Great fears have my heart overtaken, For near the abyss I am brought; I stand on the brink and am shaken, My passage with peril is fraught; I faint, I see terrors appalling, And into the deep I am falling— O hearken, O Lord, to my cries!

Thou, Thou art my Rock of Salvation, My house I have built upon Thee; Oh, if Thou shouldst fail as foundation, My ruin it surely will be; Lord, deep unto deep now is calling, Thy waves and Thy billows appalling Arise to go over my soul.

When others sing anthems of gladness, And offer thanksgiving and praise, I sit in the gloom of my sadness And hear not the anthems they raise; My song is the voice of my sighing, The festal days pass in my crying— I languish in grief and in woe.

Why art thou disquiet within me? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Confide in thy God, let Him win thee! Still hope in thy God, Him extol! For surely once dawneth a morrow, When, freed from thy care and thy sorrow, Thou praises shall sing to thy God.

His light and His truth, they shall lead me In peace to His temple at last; I rest on His Word, He will speed me, And conflict and sorrow are past; Yea, joyful I anthems will raise Him, With heart and with voice will I praise Him— My Health and my Life and my God.

Translated by C. DEVING, 1902.