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Firstpublished:1801 in Swan's New England Harmony, pp. 25-26 Description: Words by Isaac Watts, 1706, poem entitled Bewailing My Own Inconstancy, with ten stanzas. Swan used the fifth and sixth stanzas of Watts' poem in his composition.
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Original text and translations
English text
1. I love the Lord; but, ah! how far
My thoughts from the dear object are!
This wanton heart, how wide it roves,
And fancy meets a thousand loves.
2. If my soul burn to see my God, .
I tread the courts of his abode;
But troops of rivals throng the place?
And tempt me off before his face.
3. Would I enjoy my Lord alone,
I bid my passions all be gone,
All but my love; and charge my will
To bar the door and guard it still.
4. But cares or trifles make or find
Still new avenues to the mind,
Till I with grief and wonder see
Huge crowds betwixt my Lord and me.
5. Oft I am told the muse will prove
A friend to piety and love;
Straight I begin some sacred song,
And take my Savior on my tongue.
6. Strangely I lose his lovely face,
To hold the empty sounds in chase;
At best the chimes divide my heart,
And the muse shares the larger part.
7. False confident! and falser breast!
Fickle, and fond of every guest :
Each airy image, as it flies,
Here finds admittance through my eyes.
8. This foolish heart can leave her God,
And shadows tempt her thoughts abroad:
How shall I fix this wandering mind,
Or throw my fetters on the wind?
9. Look gently down, Almighty Grace;
Prison me round in thine embrace;
Pity the soul that would be thine,
And let thy power my love confine.
10. Say, when shall that bright moment be,
That I shall live alone for thee;
My heart no foreign lords adore,
And the wild muse prove false no more?
English text