Come Not, Oh Lord
(Air — Haydn.)
Come not, oh LORD, in the dread robe of splendor
Thou worest on the Mount, in the day of thine ire;
Come veiled in those shadows, deep, awful, but tender,
Which Mercy flings over thy features of fire!
LORD, thou rememberest the night, when thy Nation1
Stood fronting her Foe by the red-rolling stream;
O’er Egypt thy pillar shed dark desolation,
While Israel basked all the night in its beam.
So, when the dread clouds of anger enfold Thee,
From us, in thy mercy, the dark side remove;
While shrouded in terrors the guilty behold Thee,
Oh, turn upon us the mild light of thy Love!
Notes
1 “And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these”—Exod. xiv. 20.