Wesley Corpus

O bid me look on thee, and mourn For all my follies past, Or let me now to dust return, And sin and breathe my last. Hymns for One Fallen from Grace. Hymn VIII.69 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. 69Manuscript precursors of this hymn appear in MS Cheshunt, 125-26; and MS Clarke, 143-44. Page 110 Drunken, but not with wine, I stagger to and fro, The bitter cup of wrath divine Doth all my soul o'erflow; Intangled 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 clos'd I see The door of faith and prayer, Nothing, alas! Remains for me But blackness of despair. 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, Page 111 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! Hymns for One Fallen from Grace. Hymn IX.70 Poor, wretched heart, by sin opprest, And wilt thou never be at rest, And must thou always grieve! Ah! Woe is me, I still complain, And groan to bear my iron chain; In sin, in hell I live.