Robert Bridges, ed. (1844–1930). The Spirit of Man: An Anthology. 1916. | | | | Hymn |
Richard Watson Dixon (1833–1900) |
| | | O LORD 1 my God, when sore bested | |
| My evil life I do bewail, | |
| What times the life I might have led | |
| Arising smites me like a flail: | |
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| When I regard the past of sin, | 5 |
| Till sorrow drown me like despair; | |
| The saint in me that might have been | |
| With that I am when I compare: | |
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| Then grant the life that might have been | |
| To be in fact through penitence; | 10 |
| All my past years discharged of sin, | |
| And spent in grace and innocence: | |
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| And grant that I, when I forecast, | |
| And shrink in fear of coming things, | |
| May take this comfort of the past, | 15 |
| And lay it on my imaginings. | |
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