I love Thee, dearest Lord, and will,
Unseen, but not unknown.
When death these mortal eyes shall seal,
And still this throbbing heart,
The rending veil shall Thee reveal,
All glorious as Thou art.
Palmer looked upon his hymns as gifts from heaven, and therefore he refused to accept money for their use. He insisted, however, that those who published his hymns should print them exactly as they were written. He regarded the somewhat common practice of tampering with texts as “immoral.”
Palmer died in 1887. On the day before he breathed his last, he was heard repeating feebly the last stanza of his favorite hymn:
When death these mortal eyes shall seal,
And still this throbbing heart,