God The Father Whose Creation
Gives to flowers and fruits their birth,
Thou, Whose yearly operation
Brings the hour of harvest mirth,
Here to Thee we make oblation
Of the August-gold of earth.
God the Word! the sun, maturing
With his blessèd ray the corn,
Spake of Thee, O Sun enduring,
Thee, O everlasting Morn!
Thee in Whom our woes find curing
Thee that liftest up our horn.
God the Holy Ghost! the showers
That have fattened out the grain,
Types of Thy celestial powers,
Symbols of baptismal rain,
Shadowed out the grace that dowers
All the faithful of Thy train.
When the harvest of each nation
Severs righteousness from sin,
And archangel proclamation
Bids to put the sickle in,
And each age and generation
Sink to woe, or glory win;
Grant that we, or young, or hoary,
Lengthened be our span or brief,
Whatsoe’er the life long story
Of our joy or of our grief,
May be garnered up in glory
As Thine own elected sheaf.
Laud to Him to Whom supernal
Thrones and virtues bend the knee;
Laud to Him from Whom infernal
Powers and dominations flee;
Laud to Him the co-eternal
Paraclete, forever be.