Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Robert Southwell (1561?–1595)Lost Grace
| O GRACE, where is the joy | |
| That makes thy torments sweet? | |
| Where is the cause that many thought | |
| Their deaths through thee but meet? | |
| Where thy disdain of sin, | 5 |
| Thy secret, sweet delight? | |
| Thy sparks of bliss, thy heavenly rays, | |
| That shinèd erst so bright? | |
| O that they were not lost, | |
| Or I could it excuse; | 10 |
| O that a dream of feignèd loss | |
| My judgment did abuse! | |
| Yet God’s must I remain, | |
| By death, by wrong, by shame; | |
| I cannot blot out of my heart | 15 |
| That grace wrought in His name. | |
| I cannot set at nought | |
| Whom I have held so dear; | |
| I cannot make Him seem afar | |
| That is indeed so near. | 20 |