W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895.

To the Sea of Galilee

Benjamin Waugh (1839–1908)

O PEARL of seas! how fairly set, thou lovely Galilee!

Well may all waters of the world for beauty envy thee.

For more than beauty! On thy shores heaven’s purest feet have trod;

And in thy face, as now yon sun, was mirrored once my God.

He loved to walk with thee beside; He gazed into thy face;

Thy troubled moods He calmed for thee; thou seem’st His child of grace.

But yet why envy thee, fair sea, by Jesus favoured thus?

Far more than He hath favoured thee hath Jesus favoured us.

Not for thy waters Jesus came His precious work to do;

’Twas not to give thy troubles peace that Him from glory drew.

Thine was a brief, a passing joy, as transient as thy flowers;

Thy side He left, and went away—He never leaveth ours.

Yet, sea of seas, I envy thee, thou small, but greatest deep

For on thy bosom Jesus found the place where He might sleep.

His weary frame, His heavy heart were pillowed on thy breast.

As John on Him, so He on thee found place where He might rest.

Jesus, if thou, by work or wrong, should’st sad or weary be,

Come seek within my heart the place once found on Galilee.