Forty days and forty nights

(one verse introduction)

Forty days and forty nights
you were fasting in the wild;
forty days and forty nights
tempted, and yet undefiled.

Should we not your sorrow share
and from all desires abstain,
fasting with unceasing prayer,.
strong with you to suffer pain?

Then if evil on us press,
Jesus, Savior, hear our call!
Victor in the wilderness,
grant we may not faint nor fall!

So shall we have peace divine
holy gladness ever new;
round us, too, shall angels shine,
such as ministered to you.

Keep, O keep us, Savior dear,
ever constant by your side;
that with you we may appear
at eternal Eastertide.

Words: George Hunt Smyttan, 1856 apdt.
Music: Heinlein Martin Herbst, 1676