And there my guilt confess;
I’ll tell him I’m a wretch undone,
Without his sovereign grace.
I’ll to the gracious King approach,
Whose sceptre pardon gives;
Perhaps he may command my touch,
And then the suppliant lives.
Of the text which the compiler of the Southern Harmony found in “Rippon”, three further stanzas are found in Caldwell’s Union Harmony, p. 35. The tune, ascribed to Robert Boyd, is found also KYH 22, GCM 136, UH 34, KNH 32, HH 71, HOC 24, TZ 101, and GOS 144. A variant tune is ‘Come All Ye Worthy Christian Men’, Sharp, One Hundred English Folksongs, No. 91. Note similarity in the opening words of both songs. See also Sharp’s note as to other old related songs. The first melodic sentence is quite similar to that of the tune to ‘The Three Ravens’ as Motherwell gives it in Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern, Edition 1873, Appendix, Musick, No. 12:
