The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley

Till then in fix'd despair
Of all relief I live,
My utmost burden bear,
And now retire to grieve;
To taste my only pleasure,
In secret sighs complain,
Augment my mournful treasure,
And aggravate my pain.

To pain and grief inured
I from the womb have been,
And all the rage endured,
And all the shame of sin,
Wander'd my forty years
Throughout the desert wide,
And in ten thousand fears
Ten thousand deaths have died.

Eternal death's sad sentence
I still, alas, receive;
With fruitless, vain repentance
For final mercy grieve:
The agony of temptation
I every moment feel,
As doom'd to desperation,
As rushing into hell.

My comforts all are blasted,
My Comforter is gone:
The joy which once I tasted,
O that I ne'er had known!

208

The gourd which soothed my anguish
Is wither'd o'er my head,
And faint with grief I languish
To sink among the dead.

From all I suffer here,
(If God my sins forgive,)
From all I feel, and fear,
I there redeem'd shall live:
No serpent to deceive me,
No sin to stain my thought,
No loss, or wrong to grieve me,
Where all things are forgot.

No heart-distracting passion
Is there to break my peace,
But joy without cessation,
And love without excess:
Of paradise secure,
I shall no longer mourn;
The bliss is full, and sure,
The rose without a thorn.

Safe on the happy shore,
My soul the storm defies,
Where pain afflicts no more,
And grief no longer cries:
In that celestial city
From all our toils we cease,
And lose our sighing pity
In universal bliss.

In hope of that salvation
I feel a moment's rest,
The calm of expectation
Has stole into my breast;

209

I weep at rescue near,
I struggle to be gone,
And joy is in the tear,
And God is in the groan!

Hear then Thy own petition,
And suddenly release,
And crown my sole ambition,
And let me die in peace:
Or lengthen out my care
To threescore years and ten,
But then in mercy spare,
But O! receive me then!

University of Virginia Library

XLIX. THE SAME.

Hymn 6.

[Thou wretched man of sorrow]