Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
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| AND 1 do they so? have they a sense | |
| Of ought but influence? | |
| Can they their heads lift, and expect, | |
| And groan too? why, th’ elect | |
| Can do no more: my volumes said | 5 |
| They were all dull and dead; | |
| They judged them senseless, and their state | |
| Wholly inanimate. | |
| Go, go; seal up thy looks, | |
| And burn thy books. | 10 |
| |
| I would I were a stone, or tree, | |
| Or flow’r by pedigree, | |
| Or some poor highway herb, or spring | |
| To flow, or bird to sing! | |
| Then should I, tied to one sure state, | 15 |
| All day expect my date. | |
| But I am sadly loose, and stray | |
| A giddy blast each way; | |
| O let me not thus range! | |
| Thou canst not change. | 20 |
| |
| Sometimes I sit with Thee, and tarry | |
| An hour or so, then vary. | |
| Thy other creatures in this scene | |
| Thee only aim and mean; | |
| Some rise to seek Thee, and with heads | 25 |
| Erect peep from their beds; | |
| Others, whose birth is in the tomb, | |
| And cannot quit the womb, | |
| Sigh there, and groan for Thee, | |
| Their liberty. | 30 |
| |
| O let not me do less! shall they | |
| Watch, while I sleep or play? | |
| Shall I Thy mercies still abuse | |
| With fancies, friends, or news? | |
| O brook it not! Thy blood is mine, | 35 |
| And my soul should be Thine; | |
| O brook it not! why wilt Thou stop | |
| After whole show’rs one drop? | |
| Sure Thou wilt joy to see | |
| Thy sheep with Thee. | 40 |
