The sound of history humming – but what next, ‘a thief within the night’?
Matthew 24: 43
1 The sound of history humming,
as light and matter form,
as galaxies are clustered
within a cosmic storm;
philosophers imagine
while science gathers facts,
we reach for understanding,
yet what we know contracts.
2 We delved beyond the present
through interstellar gas;
we fathom, seek to measure,
a sub-atomic mass.
The God that we conceive of,
a thief within the night,
we cannot gauge this treasure
beyond the scale of light.
3 As yet the mystery blinds us,
confined by birth and death,
but human exploration
will not discard the quest;
as yet we live in tension:
the only earth we know
is where all skill and science
must help our love to grow.
Andrew E. Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2006 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 7 6 7 6 D
Tune: AURELIA; VICTORY PARADE (Ian Sharp)
hymnsandbooks 