[“If love’s constraining pow’r can warm”] 

If love’s constraining pow’r can warm

     A heart so cold as mine,

Come dearest Saviour to my breast

     Let all my Love be thine.

O may thy Image fill my mind

     And all my thoughts employ,

Be thou the center of my Soul

     And source of every Joy.

Let no vain toys ensnare my heart

     Or cares obstruct my sight, 

But let me view and love thee still

     With transport and delight.

Then shall I fear nor life nor death

     But wait thy kind command

To drop my clay, to rise to thee, 

     And dwell at thy right hand.

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 4, p. 139-40; MS, Steele Collection, STE 10/2, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford.