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Home  »  Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse  »  The Contrite Heart

Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By William Cowper (1731–1800)

The Contrite Heart

 
THE LORD will happiness divine
  On contrite hearts bestow;
Then tell me, gracious God, is mine
  A contrite heart or no.
 
I hear, but seem to hear in vain,        5
  Insensible as steel;
If aught is felt, ’tis only pain,
  To find I cannot feel.
 
My best desires are faint and few,
  I fain would strive for more;        10
But when I cry, “My strength renew!”
  Seem weaker than before.
 
O make this heart rejoice or ache,
  Decide this doubt for me;
And if it be not broken, break,—        15
  And heal it if it be.