[My trembling drooping spirit faints] 

My trembling drooping spirit faints

     O’erwhelm’d with slavish fears,

While sad remembrance pains my mind

     And feeds my flowing tears.

A thankful scene of mercy dies    

     Amid my dismal gloom,

While pain, disease, and sorrows wait

     To push me to the tomb.

Hear me O God, to thee I call,

     My strength, my righteousness; 

Thou hast sustain’d and cheer’d my Soul

     Amid my deep Distress.

Have mercy now, O gracious God,

     And hear my humble cry;

Support me still, forsake me not

     But be forever nigh.

O teach my weak desponding mind

     To wait in patience still,

With every thought and wish resign’d

     To all thy Sov’reign will.

Strengthen my Soul to trust in thee

     Beneath thy chast’ning rod,

By Faith to hope and call thee mine

     My Father and my God.

Permit me not to doubt thy Love,

     Thy Mercy, or thy Power,

To bless my life, to cheer my heart

     In death’s tremendous hour.

Encrease my Faith, confirm my hope,

     And let my prospects rise 

To worlds of bliss beyond the grave,

     To Mansions in the skies.—

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 4, pp. 138-39; MS, Steele Collection, STE 10/2, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford.