Spirits perturbed, ye now may rest

Verse 1
Spirits perturb’d, ye now may rest,
Nor stir the hell within your breast,
The Rebels have their purpose gain’d,
Ye see your heart’s desire obtain’d,
And in their Independance see
Secur’d your own impunity.

Verse 2
Your friends ye need no longer fear
Or tremble at Detection near,
If traitors shoud your treasons tell,
Your secret practices reveal,
Or some Associate false disclose
Your compacts with your country’s foes.

Verse 3
Your horrid deeds which shun the light
Wrapt in impenetrable night,
Who shall expose to open day?
Will France her Pensioners bewray?
Or Rebels make the worthies known
Who plac’d them on their tottering throne?

Verse 4
F[ox] in his hole may safely lie,
And gibbets furiously defy
B[urke] need not hide his guilty head,
Nor Charles’s Brood impeachments dread,
Nor Sh[elburne] for his letters quake,
Lest Congress piqued shoud send them back.

Verse 5
Your patriotic care is o’re
Cities, and countries to restore,
To give at Congress’s commands,
Our friends into the ruffians hands,
And gratify your haughty lords
By forcing thousands on their swords.

Verse 6
Ye awful ministers of death,
Rejoice with your allies beneath,
Or’e desolated realms, or’eflow’d
With torrents of fraternal blood,
Or’e millions from their country torn
To curse the day that ye were born.

Verse 7
Injoy the evils ye have done,
And lurk accountable to none,
But when your measure is fulfil’d,
Your crimes shall be to all reveal’d,
And all who meet you at that bar,
Shall shout your just damnation there.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “To the Patriots Written Dec. 1782.” This hymn was included in a manuscript titled “MS Patriotism.” This manuscript is held by the Methodist Archive and Research Centre of the John Rylands Library at The University of Manchester (accession number 1977/559, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 2). 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 1 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1988), pages 93-94.
Publishing: Public Domain