Ere thou shalt woe or want behold,
(If thou dost truly God obey)
He’ll tell a fish to fetch thee gold,
Thy just expenses to defray.
Though, like the widow’s meal, thy store
Should be but small—yet in a trice
(If thou dost strictly God adore)
He’ll make that little store suffice.
Do not on thy own arm rely,
Thy strength or thy superior skill,
But on thy friend, the Lord most high!
If thou would’st be preserv’d from ill.
God feeds the warblers of the wood,
And clothes the lilies of the plain;
God gives to all things living food,
And will he not his sons sustain?
The ravens neither sow nor reap,
They have no barns to house their seed;
Yet God does even the ravens keep,
And them, through every season, feed.
Observe the lily, and the rose,
To toil and spin they ne’er were given;
Yet God on them a robe bestows,
More rich than monarch’s vesture even.
On God, each living creature’s eyes
Are fix’d—he, with a parent’s care,
The wants of all the world supplies,
And gives to each its proper share.
He opes his bounteous hand full wide,
And feeds each animal that lives,
And ne’er leaves any unsupplied,
But to them all due measure gives.
He to the lion’s cubs gives food,
To each fierce rambler of the wild,
To the black raven’s glossy brood,
And shall he not to every child?
Thou dost not drop a single hair,
Without a providence divine;
No sparrow tumbles from the air,
Nought haps which God did not design.