Hymn 268. Happy Poverty, or the Poor in Spirit Blessed

   Matt. 5. 3. 

         Ye humble souls complain no more,

         Let faith survey your future store,

         How happy, how divinely blest,

         The sacred words of truth attest.

         When conscious grief laments sincere,                                    

         And pours the penitential tear;

         Hope points to your dejected eyes,

         The bright reversion in the skies.

         In vain the sons of wealth and pride,

         Despise your lot, your hopes deride;                                                                

         In vain they boast their little stores,

         Trifles are their’s, a kingdom yours.

         A kingdom of immense delight,

         Where health, and peace, and joy unite;

         Where undeclining pleasures rise,                                                       

         And every wish hath full supplies.

         A kingdom which can ne’er decay,

         While time sweeps earthly thrones away;

         The state which power and truth sustain,

         Unmov’d for ever must remain.                                                            

         There shall your eyes with rapture view,

         The glorious friend that dy’d for you;

         That dy’d to ransom, dy’d to raise

         To crowns of joy, and songs of praise.

         Jesus, to thee I breathe my prayer,                                                                  

         Reveal, confirm my interest there!

         Whate’er my humble lot below,

         This, this my soul desire to know!

         O let me hear that voice divine,

         Pronounce the glorious blessing mine!                                               

         Enroll’d among the happy poor,

         My largest wishes ask no more.

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 1, pp. 90-91; Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, no. 268 (all stanzas); Poems, 1780, vol. 3, pp. 139-40; no MS copy, Angus Library, Regents Park College,  Oxford.