I WILL arise and go unto my Father,
Alas! and when I throw me at his feet,
What can I say?,The Prodigal left once,
And gather’d of the fruit his folly planted,
Ate it, and did not like it, and returned,
He once returned, and he was once forgiven.
It is not so with me,I was forgiven
And sinned again, and was forgiven again,
The penitential vow upon my lips,
The kiss paternal warm upon my cheek,
And still about my neck the golden chain
With which he pledged and bound me to his love,
A second, and a third time, and a fourth,O God!
I dare not come to thee,It is impossible!
I dare not even lift mine eye to Heaven,
Lest there be something in it that offend thee,
I dare not offer thee a wish, a vow,
Lest that thy awful wisdom should discover
Sin in the wish and falsehood in the vow.
If I should say I fear thee,that is false,
For if I feared thee, could I madly brave
The awful threat’nings of thy broken law,
For every empty bauble of the earth?
If I should say I love thee,that, alas!
Is falser still,for love is dutiful,
Patient, submissive, fearful to offend,
Obedient, grateful,I am none of this.
And if I plead the penitential tear,
The firm resolve to go and sin no more,
Dost thou not know that ere the false tear dries,
I do again the very sin I wept,
And even while the vow is on the lip,
The heart is with the idol it renounces.
I come to THEE! There’s something in the thought
So strange, so fearful,something in the distance
So awful, so impassable,I cannot.
But still to thee, my Saviour!,Thee, my God
And yet my Brother!,Thee, who thyself hast trod
The very soil we tread on,who hast shared
Our needs, and felt our sorrows, and been tempted,
Even as we are,whose in-earthed spirit
Made proof of all things in us, save our sin,
Aye, and that too,for it was that which brake
By its dread weight the only heart that knew none!
Still I can come to thee, my Saviour, Friend!
For I have something yet to say to thee.
I tell thee not of fear, or love, or duty,
Or penitence, or tears, or ought of mine;
But something would I whisper of thine own.
The tender pity, that moved thee e’en to Heaven,
The love that thou hast promised and hast proved
As never love was pledged or proved till then,
Not for thy friends, for friends on earth thou hadst none,
But for thy foes; for false ones such as I am.
Oh! go thou for me to my Father’s house
And tell him one who cannot come herself
For very shame,who has no more to say
But that thy door be closed on her for ever,
Has been with thee to plead on her behalf
The pardon that she dares not ask again.
Say, for thou know’st, how bitter are the husks
On which this false world feeds her,how her heart
Sorrows in secret for her Father’s house
And still is torn and tempted from his door.
Nay, my Redeemer, say not ought of me,
But only that thou know’st me, lov’st me, died’st for me,
Lost as I am, that thou would’st have me saved,
False as I am, that thou wilt make me true,
Weak as I am, that thou canst give me strength,
And find me prayers when I can pray no more,
If only for thy sake he will forbear,
Nor cast away his Prodigal for ever.
(Caroline Fry)
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