Five little pebbles lay in the brook,
Five little pebbles hid in a nook;
“What are we good for?” one said to the other,
“Little or nothing, I’m thinking, my brother.”
Wearing away day after day,
It seemed that forever these pebbles might stay.
If they were flowers, gaudy and gay,
Doubtless someone would bear them away.
If they were bigger—stones builders use—
Doubtless some builders those pebbles might choose.
Wait, little pebbles, rounded and clean!
Long in your loneliness lying unseen;
God has a fortune awaiting for you,
Five little pebbles sturdy and true.
Five little pebbles hid in the brook,
David came down and gave them a look.
Lifting them swiftly out of the sand,
Five little pebbles, great in his hand,
Hark! there is shouting, there’s fighting today,
Boldly these pebbles are borne to the fray.
One of them chosen and put in the sling,
Who would have thought that a stone could thus sing?
Onward it sped with a might not its own,
Onward it sped by the shepherd-boy thrown.
Swift as an arrow, and straight as a dart,
For the whole nation that stone played a part,
Smiting the giant’s great terrible head,
Laying him low, a mighty man dead!
Five little pebbles lay in the brook
Mentioned with honor in God’s Holy Book.
Be thou a pebble, contented and low,
Ever kept clean by His mercy’s pure flow,
Hidden and ready till Jesus shall look,
And choose you, and use you, a stone from the brook.
ML-10/10/1982