Farewell, my all of earthly hope

Verse 1
Farewell, my all of earthly hope,
My nature’s stay, my age’s prop,
Irrevocably gone!
Submissive to the will divine
I acquiesce, and make it mine;
I offer up my Son.

Verse 2
But give I God a sacrifice
That costs me nought? my gushing eyes
The answer sad express,
My gushing eyes and troubled heart
Which bleeds with its belov’d to part,
Which breaks thro’ fond excess.

Verse 3
Yet since he from my heart is torn,
Patient, resign’d, I calmly mourn
The darling snatch’d away:
Father, with thee thy own I leave;
Into thy mercy’s arms receive,
And keep him to that day.

Verse 4 [Wesley later blotted this verse out.]
Keep (for I nothing else desire)
The bush unburnt amidst the fire,
And freely I resign
My Child for a few moments lent
(My Child no longer!) I consent
To see his face no more.

Verse 5 [Wesley later blotted this verse out.]
Receive me! and accept my pain!
Nor let him view my parting scene
Or catch my parting breath!
Nor let the hast’ner of my end,
Th’ unconscious Parricide, attend
To trouble me in death!

Verse 6
But hear my agonizing prayer
And O, preserve him, and prepare
To meet me in the skies
When thron’d in Bliss the Lamb appears,
Repairs my loss and wipes the tears
For ever from my eyes!

Hymnal/Album: This hymn appears in the manuscript “MS Samuel Wesley, R.C.” 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 1977/583/12, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 4). 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 1 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1988), pages 304-05.
Publishing: Public Domain