A picture of my life, I view

Verse 1
A picture of my life I view,
And sensibly perceive it true,
By long temptations tost,
With rocks, and shoals, and whirlpools near,
My soul, my shipwreck’d soul, I fear
Will be forever lost.

Verse 2
In a dark world I wander on,
No joyous all-inlivening sun
My gloomy sorrow chears,
Throughout the melancholy night,
To guide me by its friendly light,
No glimmering star appears.

Verse 3
My latest hope, alas, is o’re;
I cannot reach that heavenly shore,
The gusts of passion rise
So fierce, so high the billows rowl,
And on this long-afflicted soul
So huge a tempest lies.

Verse 4
Bear as ye list, ye whirlwinds bear!
A wretch, o’rewhelm’d with just despair,
O’rewhelm me with the wave,
Unless the God of love unknown
Will, for the honour of his Son,
Miraculously save.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and so [no] small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.’—[Acts 27,] v. 20." This hymn appears in the 1764 manuscript “MS Acts.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/555, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 1). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 12 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 437.
Publishing: Public Domain