Link via Steven Riddle of Flos Carmeli, a much more thoughtful blog than this one.
At the round earths imagin'd corners, blow
Your trumpets, Angells, and arise, arise
From death, you numberlesse infinities
Of soules, and to your scattred bodies goe,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom warre, dearth, sage, agues, tyrannies,
Despaire, law chance, hath slaine, and you whose eyes,
Shall behold God, and never tast deaths woe.
But let them sleepe, Lord, and mee mourne a space,
For, if above all these, my sinnes abound,
'Tis late to aske abundance of thy grace,
When wee are there; here on this lowly ground,
Teach mee how to repent; for that's as good
As if thou'hadst seal'd my pardon, with thy blood.
Steven calls this "nearly miraculous" - I couldn't agree more. John's choir sings a modern setting of the text during Lent by Williametta Spencer. It's very moving but she mishandled the text here:
'Tis late to aske abundance of thy grace,
When wee are there; here on this lowly ground,
Teach mee how to repent;
She treated "When wee are there" as part of the phrase that begins with "here on this lowly ground." It's an effective piece, but that error is grievous - almost unforgiveable. Here's an MP3 file of the setting performed by the Kansas City Chorale. It's about 2 MB so anyone should be able to download it. They take some sections too fast but overall it has a wonderful shape. The ending is particularly powerful.
