Verse 1
And have I measur’d half my days,
And half my journey run,
Nor tasted the Redeemer’s grace,
Nor yet my work begun?
Verse 2
The morning of my life is past,
The noon almost is o’er,
The night of death approaches fast,
When I can work no more.
Verse 3
O what a length of wretched years
Have I liv’d out in vain!
How fruitless all my toils and tears!
I am not born again.
Verse 4
Evil and sad my days have been,
And all a painful void,
For still I am not sav’d from sin;
For still I know not God.
Verse 5
Darkness he makes his secret place,
Thick clouds surround his throne:
Nor can I yet behold his face,
Or find the GOD UNKNOWN.
Verse 6
A God that hides himself he is,
Far off from mortal sight,
An inaccessible abyss
Of uncreated light.
Verse 7
Far off he is, yet always near,
He fills both earth and heaven,
But doth not to my soul appear,
My soul from Eden driven.
Verse 8
O’er earth a banish’d man I rove,
But cannot feel him nigh;
Where is the pardning God of love,
Who stoop’d for me to die?
Verse 9
I sought him in the secret cell,
With unavailing care,
Long did I in the desart dwell,
Nor could I find him there.
Verse 10
Still every means in vain I try,
I seek him far and near,
Where’er I come, constrain’d to cry
My Saviour is not here.
Verse 11
God is in this, in every place:
Yet O! How dark and void
To me! ’Tis one great wilderness,
This earth without my God!
Verse 12
Empty of him, who all things fills,
’Till he his light impart!
’Till he his glorious self reveals,
The veil is on my heart.
Verse 13
O thou who seest and knowst my grief,
Thyself unseen unknown,
Pity my helpless unbelief,
And take away the stone.
Verse 14
Regard me with a gracious eye,
The long-sought blessing give,
And bid me, at the point to die,
Behold thy face and live.
Verse 15
A darker soul did never yet
Thy promis’d help implore:
O that I now my Lord might meet,
And never lose him more!
Verse 16
Now, Jesus, now the Father’s love
Shed in my heart abroad,
The middle-wall of sin remove,
And let me into God.