Verse 1
A penitent indeed
Has nothing good to plead,
Guilt confesses with his eyes,
Dares not lift them up to heaven,
Not so much in words as sighs
Prays, and begs to be forgiven.

Verse 2
O’rewhelm’d with conscious fear
He trembles to draw near,
Far from the most holy place,
Far from God his distance keeps,
Feels his whole unworthiness,
Feels—but shame has seal’d his lips.

Verse 3
Labours his strugling soul
With indignation full,
With unutter’d grief opprest,
Grief too big for life to bear,
Self-condemn’d he smites his breast,
Smites his breast—and God is there!

Verse 4
Loos’d by the power of grace,
Behold, at last he prays!
Pleads th’ atoning sacrifice
For meer sin and misery,
Humbly in the Spirit cries
Originally titled: “‘God be merciful to me!”