Our Master

1. Immortal Love for ever full,
For ever flowing free,
For ever shared, for ever whole,
A never-ebbing sea.

2. Our outward lips confess the name
All other names above;
Love only knoweth whence it came
And comprehendeth love.

3. We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down;
In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For him no depths can drown:

4. But warm, sweet, tender, even yet
A present help is he;
And faith has still its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.

5. The healing of his seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch him in life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again.

6. Through him the first fond prayers are said
Our lips of childhood frame;
The last low whispers of our dead
Are burdened with his name.

7. Alone, O Love ineffable,
Thy saving name is given;
To turn aside from thee is hell,
To walk with thee is heaven.

The American Quaker poet and abolitionist, John Greenleaf Whittier, wrote the above poem.  This poem, entitled “Our Master” and originally written in 1856, appears in Whittier’s work, The Tent on the Beach, and other Poems (1867) on page 143-152. There it has 38 stanzas of 4 lines. Some portions of it have been adapted to Christian hymnals. The above seven stanzas are verses 1, 2, 5, 13, 14, 15, and 31 in the 1867 printing.

Whittier was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807, the son of John Whittier and Abigail Hussey. He grew up on a farm and also learned the trade of shoemaking. Whittier died September 7, 1892, and is buried at Union Cemetery in Amesbury, Essex County, Massachusetts.

The poetry of “Our Master” is often set to the tune Bishopthorpe by Jeremiah Clarke, an English chorister and composer born 1674 and died in 1707. Clarke composed both sacred and secular music. He is buried at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, England.