Verse 1
God of the seas, thy thundering voice
Makes all the roaring waves rejoice,
And one soft word of thy command
Can sink them silent in the sand.
Verse 2
If but a Moses wave thy rod,
The sea divides, and owns its God:
The stormy floods their Maker knew,
And let his chosen armies thro’.
Verse 3
The scaly flocks amidst the sea,
To thee, their Lord, a tribute pay;
The meanest fish that swims the flood
Leaps up, and means a praise to God.
Verse 4
The larger monsters of the deep,
On thy commands attendance keep,
By thy permission sport and play,
And cleave along their foaming way.
Verse 5
If God his voice of tempest rears,
Leviathan lies still and fears,
Anon he lifts his nostrils high,
And spouts the ocean to the sky.
Verse 6
How is thy glorious power ador’d,
Amidst those watery nations, Lord!
Yet the bold men that trace the seas,
Bold men, refuse their Maker’s praise.
Verse 7
What scenes of miracle they see,
And never tune a song to thee!
While on the flood they safely ride,
They curse the hand that smooths the tide.
Verse 8
Anon they plunge in watery graves,
And some drink death among the waves:
Yet the surviving crew blaspheme,
Nor own the God that rescu’d them.
Verse 9
O for some signal of thine hand!
Shake all the seas, Lord, shake the land,
Great Judge, descend, lest men deny
That there’s a God that rules the sky.
Verse 10
From the 70th to the 109th Hymn, I hope the
reader will forgive the neglect of the rhyme
in the first and third lines of the stanza.
Isaac Watts, “God of the Seas, Thy Thundering Voice”