Classic Poem

In shadow black as night,
With scarce one feeble ray
Of nature's dim expiring light,
The nations lost their way.

Like foolish sheep we stray'd,
All from the Maker's fold:
Each, by his sev'ral sin betray'd
His sev'ral path would hold.

Blind, headlong every one
To the same ruin ran.
Th' Almighty Father, from his throne,
Beheld his creature man.

His wilder'd human race
The Father's pity won:
Forth from the bosom of his grace
He sent his first-born son.

Benevolent he came,
The messenger of love;
Debasing to a mortal frame
His godlike form above.

With gentle voice he cries,
" Sinners my yoke receive:
" Light is my yoke, and life the prize
" I to the yielding give. "

Truth spreads her golden wings,
With the glad news she flew;
Salvation through the world she brings
To Gentile and to Jew.

O mercy sweet and high,
Above our lostiest praise:
Ye noble natives of the sky,
Your noblest anthems raise.