Minutes came quick; but mercies were
More fleet and free than they.
New time, new favour, and new joys,
Do a new song require:
Till I shall praise Thee as I would,
Accept my heart’s desire.”
POETRY.
Amongst the anonymous poetry of that period there is a hymn of the sacred ballad type, so singularly touching to my mind, so expressive of that admiration of Christ which lies at the heart of all Christian piety, and so much less known than it ought to be, that I venture to introduce several of its stanzas:—
“There was a King of old,
That did in Jewry dwell;