Sam for his first three years the Secret kept,
While in his heart the Seed of Music slept,
Till Charles’s Chissel by a carnel Stroke
Brought forth the Statue latent in the block:
Like Memnon then, he caught the Solar Fire,
And breath’d spontaneous to Apollo’s lyre,
With nature’s ease th’ Harmonious Summit won
The envious, and the gazing Croud outrun,
Left all the rest behind, and seized on—Barrington.
Sam for his first three years the Secret kept
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “On S[amuel] W[esley].” This hymn appears in the ca. 1785 manuscript “MS Miscellaneous Poems.” 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 1977/583/6). 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 3 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1992), pages 384.
Publishing: Public Domain