Ah! Lord, with late regret I own

Verse 1
Ah! Lord, with late regret I own,
I have the double evil done,
Forsook the spring of life and peace,
And toil’d for earthly happiness:
But what in them I sought with pain,
I could not from the creatures gain,
The cisterns which my folly hew’d
They would not hold one drop of good.

Verse 2
Now for my double sin I grieve,
Again the broken cisterns leave,
Again I after thee would go,
And gasp thy only love to know:
Fountain of true felicity,
Eternal God, spring up in me,
And fill’d with life, and love, and power
My heart shall never wander more.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”—Jer. ii. 13. Introduced in Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2 (Bristol: Farley, 1762). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 10 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 3.
Publishing: Public Domain