Читать книгу Best Loved Hymns and Readings - Martin Manser - Страница 27

The work of the noted scholar Dean Henry Alford of Canterbury, ‘Come, ye thankful people, come’ is an established favourite with congregations at harvest festivals, although it appears in a number of variant forms. Its original title was, indeed, ‘After Harvest’. Alford had had a precocious start as a hymn writer, publishing a Collection of Hymns for Sundry Occasions at the tender age of 11.

Come, ye thankful people, come,

Raise the song of harvest-home!

All be safely gathered in,

Ere the winter storms begin;

God, our Maker, doth provide

For our wants to be supplied;

Come to God’s own temple, come,

Raise the song of harvest-home!

All the world is God’s own field,

Fruit unto his praise to yield,

Wheat and tares together sown,

Unto joy or sorrow grown:

First the blade and then the ear,

Then the full corn shall appear:

Grant, O harvest Lord, that we

Wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come,

And shall take his harvest home;

From his field shall purge away

All that doth offend, that day;

Give his angels charge at last

In the fire the tares to cast,

But the fruitful ears to store

In his garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come;

Bring thy final harvest home;

Gather thou thy people in,

Free from sorrow, free from sin,

There for ever purified

In thy garner to abide:

Come, with all thine angels come,

Raise the glorious harvest-home!

Henry Alford (1810-71)