In exceeding bitter cry

Contempt and pangs and haunting fears—
Too late for hope, too late for ease,
Too late for rising from the dead;
Too late, too late to bend my knees,
Or bow my head,
Or weep, or ask for tears.

Hark!...One I hear Who calls to me:
“Give Me thy thorn and grief and scorn,
Give Me thy ruin and regret.
Press on thro’ darkness toward the morn:
One loves thee yet:
Have I forgotten thee?”

Lord, Who art Thou? Lord, is it Thou
My Lord and God Lord Jesus Christ?
How said I that I sat alone
And desolate and unsufficed?
Surely a stone
Would raise Thy praises now!

O Lord, when Thou didst call me, didst Thou know
My heart disheartened thro’ and thro’,
Still hankering after Egypt full in view
Where cucumbers and melons grow?
—“Yea, I knew.”—

But, Lord, when Thou didst choose me, didst Thou know
How marred I was and withered too,
Nor rose for sweetness nor for virtue rue,
Timid and rash, hasty and slow?
—“Yea, I knew.”—

My Lord, when Thou didst love me, didst Thou know
How weak my efforts were, how few,
Tepid to love and impotent to do,
Envious to reap while slack to sow?
—“Yea, I knew.”—

Good Lord, Who knowest what I cannot know
And dare not know, my false, my true,
My new, my old; Good Lord, arise and do
If loving Thou hast known me so.
—“Yea, I knew.”—