[Music]
O thou who hear'st when sinners cry,
Tho' all my crimes before thee lie,
Behold them not with angry look,
But blot their mem'ry from thy book.
Create my nature pure within,
And form my soul averse to sin;
Let thy good spirit ne'er depart,
Nor hide thy presence from my heart.
I cannot live without thy light,
Cast out and banished from thy sight;
Thy holy joys, my God, restore,
And guard me that I fall no more.
Words attributed to Watts; tune to Chapin. Found also, _Choral-Music_,
p. 48, KYH 20, MOH 26, GCM 110, SOH 5, GOS 589, UH 14. See WS 190 for
the tune's use with the 'Wicked Polly' ballad which is also to be
found in this collection. It is a variant also of 'Lord Bateman',
Sharp, _One Hundred English Folk-songs_, No. 6; and of 'Hind Horn',
_British Ballads from Maine_, pp. 73 and 78. _The Singer's Companion_
(New York, 1854) has a strikingly similar tune under the title 'Hame,
Hame, Hame', a Jacobite song whose words tell of a Scotch exile and
his longing for home. The editor of that collection found it in the
_Garland of Scotia_. The old Scotch tune is doubtless the source of
'Supplication'.
No. 106
PRAISE GOD, OSH 528