Looking for the City

Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble. Ps. cvii. 5-6.

Home, O Lord, we scarce can taste it,
Roving o’er this pilgrim soil;
Let not lonely sighs go wasted;
Leave us not in strengthless toil;
Straightly lead to Zion’s towers,
Ever-numbered as our home,
Where the Bridegroom shall be ours—
O foundationed City, come!

(Heb 11:13-16; Gen 4:12; Ps 107:4-9; 48:12-14; Matt 9:15;
Rev 21:2; Heb 11:10)

Hear, O Savior, our entreaty
For our fortunes to reverse.
Thou dost suffer with the needy;
Thou hast sworn no heir to curse.
Though the rainless desert find us
Where we oft for streams have pled,
Still we trust paternal kindness
Did not send these stones for bread.

(Pss 14:7; 126:1, 4; Job 30:25; Rom 8:16-18; Isa 43:19-20;
Matt 7:9)

When desire will not perish
For a lawful pray’r, and good,
Teach us then our cross to cherish
As it lifts us up to God;
Be our joy mid want’s hosanna,
Grace sufficient for the thorn,
Day by day our daily manna,
And our fullness, though forlorn.

(John 12:32-33; Mark 11:9-10 cf Ps 118:25-26; 2 Cor 12:7-9;
Matt 6:11; Ex 16:18-21; Eph 1:23; 2 Cor 12:10)

We have all for thee forsaken,
Have desired no other love,
Save what from thy bounty’s taken,
From, and through, and to above.
Let our hearts on high be given,
Where no rust can tarnish worth;
Sound within us songs of heaven
As we walk this tuneless earth.

(Matt 19:27; Ps 73:25; Rom 11:36; Matt 6:20; Heb 11:13-16)

—5/21/26. To “Vancouver” (“Here Is Love”). A lament.

I have been trying to crack this one for awhile. I had to put it down for a few months and come back to it—an unfamiliar experience, for me. Another lament of the wilderness, it was originally twice as long and far more metaphorical. One of my next projects will be to work the other half into a coherent whole, but I’m grateful to call this one finished. And this all the more as it allowed itself to be worked into something suitable for congregational singing, which it would not have been as originally conceived.

I cannot commend enough to you all Psalms 48 and 107, nor Hebrews 11. The city with foundations is one of my obsessions. That and Isaiah’s highway. They’re all over the place, if you look for them. Especially in Psalm 84, which is another for you, though it’s in a major key where this is minor. Ps 84:5 says “Blessed are those…in whose heart are the highways to Zion.”

This was begotten thanks to Sarah Kirk’s lovely medley of “Here Is Love” and “Man of Sorrows.” (This also begat “Superlative Grace” earlier this year. That one was actually started later but finished first.) I have an idea that her first verse matches my first two, and her last one matches my last two. I also like the way she turns the end of the sixth line differently from how it is on the Cyber Hymnal. I think Gettys do this too, but I’m not sure the source. Regardless, it’s a little less awkward.


“Here Is Love with Man of Sorrows (What a Name),” Sarah Kirk, This Blest Assurance.

I have been told this might sound lovely with a minor key tune, but I can't find one that matches it super well. Everything I’ve seen seems to have the emotional climax in the third couplet where mine comes on the fourth. Also, for this reason, Hyfrydol (“Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners”) somehow fits. So I don't know.

I am good at complaining, but I hope this hymn is not that. And I have gotten a little help to make sure, for which I am grateful. The difference between self-centered complaining and God-centered lamentation is thin sometimes. But as Watts put, “Yet thou canst hear a groan as well, / And pity our complaints.” Thank God that he pities our complaints! And that he gives us all things (1 Cor 3:21-23). And since he has said that all things work together for our good (Rom 8:28), even in hard providence there is something to be grateful for. As Marilynne Robinson put it, “I am confident that I will find great blessing in it.”