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Home  »  Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse  »  Weakness of Nature

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

By Richard Hurrell Froude (1803–1836)

Weakness of Nature

 
“Be strong and He shall comfort thine heart.”

“LORD, I have fasted, I have prayed
  And sackcloth has my girdle been,
To purge my soul I have essayed
  With hunger blank and vigil keen;
O God of Mercy! why am I        5
Still haunted by the self I fly?”
 
Sackcloth is a girdle good,
  O bind it round thee still:
Fasting, it is Angel’s food
  And Jesus loved the night-air chill;        10
Yet think not prayer and fast were given
To make one step ’twixt earth and Heaven. 1
 
Note 1. Ephesians ii. 8. [back]