To you, O Lord, our hearts we raise

1 To you, O Lord, our hearts we raise
in hymns of adoration:
accept our sacrifice of praise,
our shouts of exultation;
for by your hand our souls are fed
what joys your love has given!
You give to us our daily bread,
so give us bread from heaven!

2 And now on this our festal day,
your love to us expressing
our gifts before you, Lord, we lay,
the first fruits of your blessing:
bright robes of gold the fields adorn,
the hills with joy are ringing;
the valleys stand so thick with corn
that even they are singing.

3 Yet in your presence we confess,
O Lord of earth and heaven,
our pride, our greed, our selfishness
we ask to be forgiven:
and where the hungry suffer still
because of our ambition,
there let our riches serve your will,
your love be our commission.

4 There is a country bright as day
beyond the crystal river,
where hunger will be done away
and thirst be gone forever;
where praises ring out loud and strong
that now with ours are blending;
where we shall sing the harvest song
that never has an ending.

Version by Michael Perry (Word and Music) of a hymn by William Chatterton Dix (1837 - 1898), Michael Perry (1942 - 1996)
© Beatrice Perry/Jubilate Hymns
8 7 8 7 D Iambic