4 The Lord can clear the darkest skies,
Can give us day for night,
Make drops of sacred sorrow rise
To rivers of delight.
5 Let those that sow in sadness wait
Till the fair harvest come,
They shall confess their sheaves are great,
And shout the blessings home.
6 Tho’ seed lie bury’d long in dust,
It shan’t deceive their hope;
The precious grain can ne’er be lost,
For grace insures the crop.
Psalm 127:1. L. M.
The blessing of God on the
business and comforts of life.
1 If God succeed not, all the cost And pains to build the house are lost: If God the city will not keep, The watchful guards as well may sleep.
3 What if you rise before the sun,
And work and toil when day is done,
Careful and sparing eat your bread,
To shun that poverty you dread;
3 ’Tis all in vain, till God hath blest; He can make rich, yet give us rest: Children and friends are blessings too, If God our sovereign make them so.
4 Happy the man to whom he sends
Obedient children, faithful friends:
How sweet our daily comforts prove
When they are season’d with his love!
Psalm 127:2. C. M.
God all in all.
1 If God to build the house deny,
The builders work in vain;
And towns, without his wakeful eye,
An useless watch maintain.
2 Before the morning beams arise,
Your painful work renew,
And till the stars ascend the skies
Your tiresome toil pursue.
3 Short be your sleep, and coarse your fare;
In vain, till God has blest;
But if his smiles attend your care,
You shall have food and rest.
4 Nor children, relatives, nor friends
Shall real blessings prove,
Nor all the earthly joys he sends,
If sent without his love.
Psalm 128.
Family blessings.
1 O happy man, whose soul is fill’d
With zeal and reverend awe;
His lips to God their honours yield,
His life adorns the law.
2 A careful providence shall stand
And ever guard thy head,
Shall on the labours of thy hand
Its kindly blessings shed.
3 [Thy wife shall be a fruitful vine;
Thy children round thy board,
Each like a plant of honour shine,
And learn to fear the Lord.]
4 The Lord shall thy best hopes fulfil
For months and years to come;
The Lord who dwells on Zion’s hill,
Shall send thee blessings home.
5 This is the man whose happy eyes
Shall see his house increase,
Shall see the sinking church arise,
Then leave the world in peace.
Psalm 129.
Persecutors punished.
1 Up from my youth, may Israel say,
Have I been nurs’d in tears;
My griefs were constant as the day,
And tedious as the years.
2 Up from my youth I bore the rage
Of all the sons of strife;
Oft they assail’d my riper age,
But not destroy’d my life.


