The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley

Cover'd with guilty shame,
O whither shall I fly?
Full of the curse of sin I am,
With no deliverance nigh;
My punishment is now
Greater than I can bear,
Beneath the weight I faint, and bow,
And sink into despair.

Drunken, but not with wine,
I stagger to and fro,
The bitter cup of wrath Divine
Doth all my soul o'erflow;
Entangled in a net
As a wild bull I lie,
And struggle with my pain, and fret,
And wish in vain to die.

O who shall help afford,
Or ease my misery!
Full of the fury of the Lord,
O who can pity me!
The sin avenging rod
I every moment feel,
The arrows of Almighty God,
The antepast of hell.

I lift my weary eyes,
And drop their lids again,
No hope, no answer from the skies,
No respite of my pain!
For ever closed I see
The door of faith and prayer,
Nothing, alas! remains for me
But blackness of despair.

395

I throw mine eyes around
That witness huge dismay,
No secret place for me is found
From sin to 'scape away:
Ah! woe is me, constrain'd
With human fiends to dwell,
Held down, and horribly detain'd
Amidst the toils of hell.

O earth, earth, earth attend!
(Since heaven rejects my prayer)
Open thy mouth, and kindly end
My agony of despair,
Of guilt, and shame, and sin,
Of fear, and grief unknown;
Open thy mouth, and take me in,
And swallow up thine own.

Cover, O earth, my blood,
And never more disclose
A wretch that flies to thee, pursued
By human, hellish foes:
O that I could but fall,
And die out of their power,
Die into nothing now—die all—
And sin—and be no more!

University of Virginia Library

LVIII. THE SAME.

Hymn 8.

[Cover'd with guilty shame]