The new minnesinger and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Change not, change not to me, my God, I would that Thou should'st be
To furthest worlds what Thou hast been on this sad earth to me.
Though Thou hast baffled sore my life, though thy swift scourging rod
Hath left me spirit scarr'd, I cry—Change not to me, my God!

Change not to me for any change that o'er my soul may come,
When lips that dearly love thy praise in bitterness are dumb;

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Yea, when I love not at all, when from thy face I flee,
Let thy compelling love pursue, my God, change not to me!

When Death hath wrought his awful change, and left me spirit bare,
Thou who didst hide me 'neath thy wings, thy mantling love prepare;
I am no other than I was when most Thou didst befriend,
I trust Thee, Lord, for what Thou wert, be changeless to the end.

I do not ask with sudden step thy purest heaven to win,
Be still, Most Merciful, all love-relentless to my sin;
Yea, Lord, make wholly beautiful what Thou hast lov'd so well,
Burn out in me whate'er defiles, burn out in fire of hell.

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Let me but know thy voice, its word I will in all obey,
In outer darkness still most sure that Thou wilt find a way
To bring thy banish'd to Thyself, as Thou didst bring of old,
When thy sin-wearied child but thought on the forsaken fold.

Change not to me in those far-worlds, where all is strange and new;
Where can my stranger spirit rest, if thou art changèd too?
As turns the child from alien crowd to the one kindred face
To find that mother eyes make home in unfamiliar place,

So trembling must I turn to Thee, the God whom I have known,
The God who in this lonely world hath never left me lone.

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Do with me, Lord, whate'er Thou wilt, so only Thou wilt be
For ever, and for evermore, what Thou hast been to me.