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Lord, have mercy when we pray
Strength to seek a better way;
When our wakening thoughts begin
First to loathe their cherished sin;
When our weary spirits fail,
And our aching brows are pale;
Then Thy strengthening grace afford;
Then, O, then, have mercy, Lord!
Lord, have mercy when we know
First how vain this world below;
When its darker thoughts oppress,
Doubts perplex, and fears distress;
When the earliest gleam is given
Of the bright but distant heaven;
Then Thy strengthening grace afford;
Then, O, then, have mercy, Lord!
Source: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (15th ed.) #204
First Line: | Lord, have mercy when we pray |
Author: | Henry Hart Milman |
Language: | English |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
Lord, have mercy when we [pray] strive. H. H. Milman. [Lent.] First published in Bishop Heber's posthumous Hymns, &c, 1827, p. 94, in 3 stanzas of 8 lines, with the refrain "Oh then, have mercy! Lord I" and repeated in the author's Psalms & Hymns, 1837. In addition to its use in its original form, it is also given in several collections as “Lord, have mercy when we pray" as in the People's Hymnal, 1867; and, with stanzas ii. and iii. transposed, in the 1869 Appendix to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Psalms & Hymns Because of its refrain it is sometimes regarded as a Metrical Litany.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)