He was better to me than all my hopes;
He was better than all my fears;
He made a bridge of my broken works,
And a rainbow of my tears;
The billows that guarded my sea-girt path
But carried my Lord on their crest;
When I dwell on the days of my wilderness march,
I can lean on His love for the rest.
He guided by paths that I could not see,
By ways that I have not known;
The crooked was straight and the rough made plain
As I followed the Lord alone;
I praise Him still for the pleasant palms,
And the water-springs by the way,
For the glowing pillar of flame by night,
And the sheltering cloud by day.
There is light for me on the trackless wild,
As the wonders of old I trace,
When the God of the whole earth went before
To search me a resting place;
Has He changed for me? No, He changes not;
He will bring me by some new way,
Through fire and flood past each crafty foe,
As safely as yesterday.
Never a watch on the dreariest halt
But some promise of love endears;
I read from the past that my future shall be
Far better than all my fears;
Like the golden pot of wilderness bread
Laid up with the blossoming rod,
All safe in the ark with the law of the Lord
Is the covenant care of my God.
A. Shipton