Ah! woe is me, condemn’d to bear

Verse 1
Ah! Woe is me, condemn’d to bear
The living death of lingring hope;
In vain I labour to despair,
To give my life, my Saviour up,
Still on the rack of doubt I lie,
Nor can I live, nor can I die.

Verse 2
Is there a soul on this side hell,
So fallen, and so foul as mine!
But O! ’Tis just whate’er I feel
I dare not at my doom repine,
More I deserve, if more can be,
His plagues are all too light for me.

Verse 3
Yet let me urge my one request,
Most foul, and fallen as I am,
I ask not, Lord, relief and rest,
But end, or plunge me in my shame,
Now, Saviour, now conclude the strife,
And turn the scale for death, or life.

Verse 4
Ah! Do not let me longer live
Stretch’d on this rack of doubt and fear,
Against, or with me sentence give,
My judge, or Advocate appear,
Now, let me now thy pleasure feel,
And rise to heaven, or sink to hell.

Hymnal/Album: Introduced in Hymns and Sacred Poems Vol. 1, published by Charles Wesley (Bristol: Felix Farley, 1749). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 4 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1869), page 351.
Publishing: Public Domain