Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Private Devotion

By Phoebe (Hinsdale) Brown (1783–1861)

I LOVE to steal awhile away

From every cumbering care,

And spend the hours of setting day

In humble, grateful prayer.

I love, in solitude, to shed

The penitential tear;

And all His promises to plead,

Where none but God can hear.

I love to think on mercies past,

And future good implore;

And all my cares and sorrows cast

On Him whom I adore.

I love, by faith, to take a view

Of brighter scenes in heaven;

The prospect doth my strength renew,

While here by tempests driven.

Thus, when life’s toilsome day is o’er,

May its departing ray

Be calm as this impressive hour,

And lead to endless day.

Compressed in Nettleton’s “Village Hymns” (1824) to these stanzas, from the original poem written at Ellington, Conn., 1818.