O Blest Were the Accents of Early Creation

O blest were the accents of early creation,
When the Word of Jehovah came down from above:

O blest were the accents of early creation,
When the Word of Jehovah came down from above:
In the clods of the earth to infuse animation,
And wake their cold atoms to life and to love.

And mighty the tones which the firmament rended,
When on wheels of the thunder, and wings of the wind,
By lightning, and hail, and thick darkness attended,
He uttered on Sinai his laws to mankind.

And sweet was the voice of the First-born of heaven,
(Though poor his apparel, though earthly his form,)
Who said to the mourner, ‘Thy sins are forgiven,’
‘Be whole,’ to the sick – and ‘Be still,’ to the storm.

O, Judge of the world, when arrayed in thy glory,
Thy summons again shall be heard from on high,
While nature stands trembling and naked before thee,
And waits on thy sentence to live or to die;

When the heaven shall fly fast from the sound of thy thunder,
And the sun, in thy lightnings, grow languid and pale,
And the sea yield her dead, and the tomb cleave asunder,
In the hour of thy terrors, let mercy prevail.

Reginald Heber