This is not a favourite strain of Cowper’s. His hymns are nearly always the expression of personal emotion or experience. We may close our quotations from his Olney hymns with one which expresses, in his own way, the common yearning of all who love our Lord Jesus Christ.
LONGING TO BE WITH CHRIST
My Saviour, whom absent I love,
Whom, not having seen, I adore;
Whose name is exalted above
All glory, dominion, and power;
Dissolve Thou these bonds that detain
My soul from her portion in Thee,
Ah! strike off this adamant chain,
And make me eternally free.