Verse 1
Rich, and increas’d with goods I was,
Abundant in my virtue’s store,
In wisdom rich, and strength, and grace;
So rich, I needed nothing more:
Alas! My God, I could not see
That still I needed all in thee.

Verse 2
Thanks to thy grace, if I begin
My wretchedness at length to know,
If now, in part convinc’d of sin,
I groan beneath my weight of woe;
Surely at last I more than see
That sin is perfect misery.

Verse 3
Stript of my boasted gifts, I fall
A beggar at thy mercy’s door,
I ask an alms, for grace I call,
Poor, beyond all expression poor,
If one good thought thy heaven could buy,
Alas! Not one good thought have I.

Verse 4
How dark and dreary is my heart!
Dark as the chambers of the grave,
So blind, ’till thou thy light impart,
I cannot see thy power to save.
Or know, ’till thou the veil remove,
That I am sin, and God is love.

Verse 5
My fig-leaves now are cast aside,
The rags of my self-righteousness,
From thee my shame I cannot hide,
My spirit sinks in deep distress;
How shall I in thy sight appear,
Or bear myself, when thou art near!

Verse 6
A monster to myself I am,
Self-loathing at thy feet I lie,
How shall I bear this load of shame!
How shall I meet thy piercing eye!
I faint, and sink, and die away
At the[1] insufferable day.

Verse 7
Mountains, and rocks on you I call,
My nakedness of soul to skreen,
Fall, on my guilty nature fall,
And hide me from the hell of sin!
Alas! My soul, it cannot be:
The hell of sin remains in thee.

Verse 8
O God! (But shall I dare to pray?)
O Jesus! Son of God and man,
Pity a sinful worm, and stay
My grief, and mitigate my pain;
Cover my shame, remove my load
Of sin, for thou hast blush’d in blood.

Verse 9
Or rather, if it be thy will,
Conform me fully to thy death,
Now let me all my vileness feel,
Now let me render up my breath,
And bow my head, and die with thee,
For shame that thou hast died for me.

[1] Wesley changed “the” to “thy” in 1745.