"Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" by Robert Robinson

"Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, 'Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.'" So reads 1 Samuel 7:12 in the King James Version of the Bible. Robert Robinson (1735-1790) wrote the words of the following hymn in 1758:


COME, THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
   Tune my heart to sing thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
   Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
   Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
   Mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
   Hither by thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by thy good pleasure,
   Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
   Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
   Interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
   Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
   Bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
   Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
   Seal it for thy courts above.

Robert Robinson

Related post: Chris Rice sings "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing"

Chris Rice - "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" (words by Robert Robinson)

An Old World Blessing (Anonymous)

AN OLD WORLD BLESSING

May there always be work for your hands to do.

May your purse always hold a coin or two.

May the sun shine on your windowpane.

May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain.

May the hand of a friend always be near you.

May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

In the language of flowers,
the symbolic meaning of the chrysanthemum
is cheerfulness.

Two Poems by F. Scott Fitzgerald

On this day in 1896 American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In This Side of Paradise (1920), the first novel that he wrote, there are "A Poem that Eleanor Sent Amory Several Years Later" and "A Poem Amory Sent to Eleanor and Which He Called 'Summer Storm'." To read the poem that Eleanor sent Amory, click here. To read the poem that Amory sent to Eleanor and which he called "Summer Storm," click here.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

"The Final Say: Labor of Love" by Monty Gilmer

THE FINAL SAY

by Monty Gilmer

Quotations I have paired up for comparison

   Labor of Love

     Paul wrote, "We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father; knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election."

     THE BIBLE:

     1 Thessalonians 1:2-4 (King James Version)

     Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

     HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862)

     American writer

Henry David Thoreau

"Where Go the Boats?" by Robert Louis Stevenson

Yesterday I posted a video of Jordan Harling reading the classic poem "Paper Boats" by Rabindranath Tagore. That poem is good for children. Here is another poem about boats, a poem from A Child's Garden of Verses (1885) by Robert Louis Stevenson. A Child's Garden of Verses is a small collection of poems evoking the world and feelings of childhood.


WHERE GO THE BOATS?

Dark brown is the river,
   Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
    With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,
   Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating --
   Where will all come home?

On goes the river
   And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
   Away down the hill.

Away down the river,
   A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
   Shall bring my boats ashore.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Scottish author