From their bleeding bosom rent (Bleeding from their bosom rent)

Verse 1
Bleeding from their bosom rent,
Might they not a saint lament?
From the flock by violence torn,
Might they not a Shepherd mourn?

Verse 2
Free from nature’s fond excess
Thus we may our grief express
Thus a parted friend deplore,
Griev’d for them that grieve no more.

Verse 3
Chiefly, when the Lord of all
Doth his instruments recall,
Miss we our instructors here,
Mourn a ravish’d minister;

Verse 4
Deeply, justly sensible,
Then the general loss we feel,
Testify our grateful love
Weep for one who sings above.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled “Devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.”—[Acts] viii. 2. Introduced in Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2 (Bristol: Farley, 1762). Wesley later revised the hymn in his 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 221.
Publishing: Public Domain