Christ My Song - 773
The hart panteth after the waters - The thirst of God
(Heinrich Suso/Frances Bevan/Johannes Thomas Rüegg)
The thirst of God.
John 4,7.
1. The hart panteth after the waters,
the dying for life that departs;
the Lord in his glory for sinners,
for the love of rebellious hearts.
Call back all the days of the ages,
all snow-flakes come down from above;
all flowers of summers departed,
but think not to measure his love. (PDF - Midi)
2. Behold him, O soul, where he told it,
pale, bleeding, and bearing thy sin;
he knocketh, saith, "Open, belovèd,
I pray thee to let me come in.
Behold, I have borne all the judgment,
thy sins, O belovèd, are gone;
forgotten, forgotten for ever,
God seeketh, bud findeth not one.
3. Behold, with what labour I won thee,
behold in my hands and my feet,
the tale of my measureless sorrow –
of love that made sorrow so sweet.
A flax-thread in oceans of fire,
how soon swallowed up it would be!
yet sooner in oceans of mercy,
the sinner that cometh to me."
Frances Bevan, Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso and others 1, 1899, 66-67, after Heinrich Suso.