[“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: Steele Collection, 10/2, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford; also Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 4, pp. 139-40.