James Montgomery (1771 – 1854)
British editor and poet.
When the good man yields his breath
(For the good man never dies).
Nature's prime favourites were the Pelicans;
High-fed, long-lived, and sociable and free.
Here in the body pent,
Absent from Him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day's march nearer home.
Hymns should have unity,graduation and mutual dependence in the thoughts,a conscious progress,a sense of completeness..and be easily understood.
When to the cross I turn my eyes,
And rest on Calvary,
O Lamb of God, my sacrifice,
I must remember Thee.
Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea.
'T is not the whole of life to live,
Nor all of death to die.
Who that hath ever been
Could bear to be no more?
Yet who would tread again the scene
He trod through life before?
Counts his sure gains, and hurries back for more.
Nimbly they seized and secreted their prey,
Alive and wriggling in the elastic net,
Which Nature hung beneath their grasping beaks;
Till, swoln with captures, the unwieldy burden
Clogg'd their slow flight, as heavily to land,
These mighty hunters of the deep return'd.
There on the cragged cliffs they perch'd at ease,
Gorging their hapless victims one by one;
Then full and weary, side by side, they slept,
Till evening roused them to the chase again.
Bliss in possession will not last;
Remembered joys are never past;
At once the fountain, stream, and sea,
They were, they are, they yet shall be.
Joys too exquisite to last,
And yet more exquisite when past.
Return unto thy rest, my soul,
From all the wanderings of thy thought,
From sickness unto death made whole,
Safe through a thousand perils brought.
Hope against hope, and ask till ye receive.
Once, in the flight of ages past,
There lived a man.
If God hath made this world so fair,
Where sin and death abound,
How beautiful beyond compare
Will paradise be found!
Baptize the nations! far and nigh,
The triumphs of the cross record
The name of Jesus glorify,
Till every people call Him Lord.
Gashed with honourable scars,
Low in Glory's lap they lie;
Though they fell, they fell like stars,
Streaming splendour through the sky.
Friend after friend departs;
Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts
That finds not here an end.
Nor sink those stars in empty night:
They hide themselves in heaven's own light.