My God, Permit Me Not To Be

My God! permit me not to be

A stranger to myself and Thee:

Amidst a thousand thoughts I rove,

Forgetful of my highest love.

Why should my passions mix with earth,

And thus debase my heavenly birth?

Why should I cleave to things below,

And let my God, my Saviour, go?

Call me away from flesh and sense;

Thy sovereign word can draw me thence:

I would obey the voice divine,

And all inferior joys resign.

Be earth, with all her cares, withdrawn;

Let noise and vanity be gone;

In secret silence of the mind,

My heaven, and there my God, I find.

Amen.