Scripture Verse

Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, Thou art very great; Thou art clothed with honor and majesty. Psalm 104:1

Introduction

Words: From The Psal­ter (Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­van­ia: Unit­ed Pres­by­te­ri­an Board of Pub­li­ca­tion, 1912), num­ber 285.

Music: Hough­ton Hen­ry J. Gaunt­lett, 1861 (🔊 pdf nwc).

portrait
Henry J. Gauntlett (1805–1876)
National Portrait Gallery

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Lyrics

My soul, bless the Lord! the Lord is most great,
With glo­ry ar­rayed, ma­jes­tic His state;
The light is His gar­ment, the skies are his shade,
And ov­er the wa­ters His courts has He laid.

He rides on the clouds, the wings of the storm,
The light­ning and wind His mis­sion per­form;
The earth He has found­ed her sta­tion to keep,
And wrapped as a ves­ture about her the deep.

O’er moun­tain and plain the dark wa­ters raged;
His voice they ob­eyed, the floods were as­suaged;
Uplifting the moun­tains He or­dered a bound,
Forbidding the wa­ters to co­ver the ground.

He caus­es the springs of wa­ter to flow
In streams ’mid the hills and val­leys be­low;
Beside them with sing­ing the birds greet the day,
And there the beasts ga­ther their thirst to al­lay.

He wa­ters the hills with rain from the skies,
And plen­ti­ful grass and herbs He sup­plies,
Supplying the cat­tle, and bless­ing man’s toil
With bread in abun­dance, with wine and with oil.

The trees which the Lord has plant­ed are fed,
And ov­er the earth their branch­es are spread;
They keep in their shel­ter the birds of the air,
The life of each crea­ture the Lord makes His care.

Thy Spi­rit, O Lord, makes life to abound,
The earth is re­newed, and fruit­ful the ground;
To God as­cribe glo­ry and wis­dom and might,
Let God in His crea­tures for­ev­er de­light.

Rejoicing in God, my thought shall be sweet,
While sin­ners de­part in ru­in com­plete;
My soul, bless Je­ho­vah, His name be ad­ored,
Come, praise Him, ye peo­ple, and wor­ship the Lord.