Before it be too late,
Or else you’ll weep, lament and cry,
Lost in a ruin’d state.
William Walker claims this song. See ‘Church’s Desolation’, a variant of the tune, for source references. See also ‘Sweet William and Lady Margery’ (Wyman and Brockway, p. 94) for a secular tune variant.
No. 30
[CONDESCENSION], GOS 656
Hexatonic, mode 1 b (I II — IV V VI 7)
How condescending and how kind
Was God’s eternal Son!
Our mis’ry reach’d his heav’nly mind