Bleeding Tenderness, farewell

Verse 1
Bleeding Tenderness, farewell,
Hurried in a moment hence,
(Thy sad, unexampled tale
Shocks the agonised sense)
Pitied and deplor’d by all!
Virtue[’s] self, no more severe,
Grieves at thy untimely fall,
Drops the soft, forgiving tear!

Verse 2
Martyr of fidelity
Fatally alas, belov’d!
Brutal Appetite to Thee
Crueller than hatred prov’d:
By the dire Assassin’s hand
Torn from all thou lov’st below—
Who the deed can understand,
Who the ways of heaven can know?

Verse 3
Wherefore was she form’d to please
Gentlest of the gentle kind?
Why were want and wretchedness
Sure in her a friend to find?
Lo, the pleasing Form appears
Mangled, weltring in her gore!
Misery’s sons, indulge your tears,
Misery’s Friend is now no more!

Verse 4
Dare we hope her safe above,
Snatch’d from the infernal grave?
Who shall bound Almighty LOVE,
Teach his God how far to save?
MERCY’s thoughts are not as ours:
He who bought her with his blood,
Conqueror of all adverse Powers,
Jesus claims her soul for God!

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “On the murder of Miss Ray.” Wesley included this hymn in a manuscript known as MS Funeral Hymns. This manuscript appears in the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library at The University of Manchester, accession number MA 1977/578 (Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 3 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1992), page 343.
Publishing: Public Domain