1 A cry comes over the deep,
Wailing of dying souls.
’Tis echoed in every heart,
Brothers are on the shoals!
The breakers are dashing high,
And death is in every wave,
And wildly ringeth the cry,
"We perish with none to save."

Refrain:
Ring out the tide of song,
While prayer its burden rolls,
That He who rules the storm,
Will bring them off the shoals.

2 Sweet hope went out with the day,
Rudder and compass lost;
Despair more dark than night,
Crowneth the tempest tossed;
No help may come from the sea,
No succor from the land,
Say, must they perish, and we
Reach never to them a hand? [Refrain]

3 Quick! point to the saving Rock
Looming from out the deep,
Whose beacon the periled souls
Ever will safely keep.
No matter how fierce the storm,
How madly the billow rolls,
The light of the Guiding Star,
Will bring them off the shoals. [Refrain]