Wesley Corpus

Take the ransom'd captive home, Take the purchase of thy blood: Dear desire of nations come, Come, and bring us all to God. Part III.27 Triumphant soul, the hour is come That calls thee to thy Saviour's breast, The exile is returning home, The weary entring into rest, The angels for their charge attend, And I must render up my friend. 27Manuscript precursors of Part III appear in MS Richmond Tracts, 14-15; MS Shent, 165a-165b; and MS Thirty, 107-8. Page 281 My friend, how shall I let thee go, How can I bear with thee to part! Dearer than life and all below, Wound in the fibres of my heart, With thee my mingled spirits join, My life is all wrapt up in thine. And can I see thee die unmov'd, In death so full of love to me? Most loving soul, and most belov'd, My sister, and my friend I see, My first concern, my tend'rest care, My child the daughter of my prayer. Labours for thee my struggling soul, Thy pangs my bleeding bosom move; Of complicated passion full, Pity, and grief, and joy, and love I feel thy last great agony, And gasps my soul to die with thee. Envious I view that faded cheek, That cheek with deadly pale o'erspread, Faulters thy tongue, and fails to speak, And heaves thy breast, and droops thy head, Glimmers the lamp of life, and dies And I am here to close thine eyes. I wait to catch thy parting breath, And feel the answer of thy prayer; Page 282 Bless me, ev'n me, my friend, in death, And ask that I thy bliss may share, May soon like thee my life resign; O let thy latter end be mine! Part IV.28 Away ye clouds of unbelief, I cannot sorrow without hope, My soul enjoys her noble grief, And fills her Lord's afflictions up, Touch'd with divinest sympathy; For Jesus weeps, and groans in me. Right precious in his sight the death Of all his saints and servants is: Jesus receives their parting breath, Himself is their eternal bliss; And now he bids thy warfare end, He claims the spirit of my friend. Adieu, dear, dying saint adieu, The summons of thy Lord obey, Mighty, and merciful, and true He bids thee rise, and come away, With triumph leave this mouldring clod, And die into the arms of God.