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Poems About Redemption

Table of Contents

  1. No Escape by Amos Russel Wells
  2. Like by Amos Russel Wells
  3. Blind by Amos Russel Wells
  4. "Dust Thou Art And Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return." by Eliza Wolcott
  5. Bread—And Butter by Amos Russel Wells
  6. A Hymn of Turning by Amos Russel Wells
  7. Turning Back by Amos Russel Wells
  8. Give Me Thine Heart! by J. R. Eastwood
  9. Confession by ENS
  10. Forgiveness by J. R. Eastwood
  11. "Dead Unto Sin" by Amos Russel Wells
  12. He Shall Save His People From Their Sins by ENS
  13. Mercy and Pardon translated by Alice Lucas
  14. The Good Shepherd by William Edensor Littlewood
  15. On Hearing a Bird Singing in a Cage by Peter Burn
  16. Recessional by Rudyard Kipling

    Poems About Sin

  1. No Escape

    by Amos Russel Wells

    I threw my mantle over my head,
    But my sin had dyed the mantle red,
    So I hid my face in my hands instead.

    But my hands with sin's leprosy were white,
    So I closed my eyes; and that inward sight
    Showed the sin enthroned in my spirit's night!

  2. Like

    by Amos Russel Wells

    My sins are like an arrow-flight
    That hurtles o'er the field.—
    Like arrows from an ambuscade;
    But God is like a shield.

    My sins are like a wintry frost,
    And slowly, one by one,
    My joys and powers they seal in death;
    But God is like a sun.

    My sins are like a malady
    Increasing through the years;
    But like a good physician, He,
    The healing God, appears.

    My sins are like the ocean waves
    That surge with angry shock.—
    The treacherous, inconstant waves;
    But God is like a rock.

    My sins are like a parched land
    With thirst and hunger dead;
    But like the living waters, God,
    And like the living bread.

    My sins are like a wandering
    In deserts drear and cold;
    But God is like a shepherd kind,
    And God is like a fold.

    Like all things hurtful, harsh, and foul,
    Are these my ravening sins;
    But God is like all graciousness
    That helps and heals and wins.

    And yet without the loving Christ
    And His compelling rod,
    My heart would leap to follow sin
    And disavow my God.

  3. Blind

    by Amos Russel Wells

    Blind! Dear sun, I dreamed that I was blind!
    Dear green of grass and shining blue of sky,
    That ye were one, and nothing! That my eye
    Was dungeoned in with massy black, behind,
    Before; that all my reaching could not find
    With outstretched, sickened nerves one cord whereby
    To the bright, loving world, so far, so nigh,
    My strange world of blank horror I could bind.
    And still the terror of it stays with me,
    And in that dread the spirit bids me read
    How closely I am knit to what I see,
    And how the senses tyrannize my need.
    O light, true light of heaven! Can it be
    That my clear-seeing eyes are blind indeed?

  4. "Dust Thou Art And Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return."

    by Eliza Wolcott

    Heav'ns just demand,—let mortals bow
    In justice to their King;—
    Pride is our curse and sin below,
    The sting of death is sin.

    Sin the great enemy of souls,
    Blights all our hopes of heaven,
    Till grace with power the heart controls,
    And mercy free is given.

    When mercy hides our sins, we view
    A home beyond the grave,
    Grace triumphs over death, to show
    That Christ hath power to save.

    O Jesus, wash us clean from sin,
    With thy most precious blood;
    Then shall our faith fresh courage win,
    To appear before our God.

    In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

    – Genesis 3:19
    KJV
  5. Poems About The Gospel

    16aFor I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth;

    – Romans 1:16
    KJV
  6. Bread—And Butter

    by Amos Russel Wells

    "The gospel is the bread of life,"
    I heard a preacher mutter;
    "The gospel is the bread of life,
    And bread is served with—butter.

    "Yet some men preach the living word
    With hem and haw and stutter;
    And grace have they sans graciousness,
    The bread without the butter.

    "And others while they preach the truth,
    That truth half-hearted utter;
    Their faith is lacking confidence,
    Their bread is lacking butter.

    "The truth that saves a sinful man
    From brothel, bar, and gutter,
    Is truth that loves and truth that dares;
    The bread and also butter."

  7. Poems About Repentance

  8. A Hymn of Turning

    by Amos Russell Wells

    God of law, whose mighty form
    Rears the mountain, sways the storm,
    Bowed beneath Thy just decree,
    Whither shall I turn from Thee?

    I will turn, O Crucified,
    To the refuge of Thy side.
    From my sins that bleed and burn,
    To Thy bleeding cross I turn.

    I have tested human skill,
    Human love and human will,
    All devices of the brain,
    Reason, honor—all are vain.

    From my self with all its woes,
    Shameful prey of shameful foes,
    Lo. I turn—how eagerly!—
    Christ, my better self, to Thee.

    Field and forest, sea and air,—
    All the earth is very fair.
    Keen ambition's crafty art
    Binds the world upon my heart.

    But in Thee, O Christ! I find
    All ennoblings of the mind;
    Fount of all for which I yearn,
    Christ, O Christ, to Thee I turn.

  9. Turning Back

    by Amos Russel Wells

    When the blossom from the sun
    Turns its head away,
    Not for it do sunbeams run
    Through the shining day.

    When the blossom turns again
    To the sun's bright face,
    The forgiving sunlight then
    Pours its golden grace.

    When the round earth turns aside
    Into winter's cold,
    How the merry blossoms hide,
    How the world grows old!

    When the earth again in spring
    To the sun returns,
    How all heaven's pardoning
    Leaps and laughs and yearns!

    So when hearts of human kind
    Turn from God away,
    Gloom and misery they find
    Darkening the day.

    But if they will turn again
    And their God adore,
    As in nature, so in men,
    All is well once more.

  10. Give Me Thine Heart!

    by J. R. Eastwood

    "Give Me thine heart!" When life was young
    That summons gently came,
    With Jesus in the songs I sung
    The sweetest name.

    And God still called. The endless day
    Was in its early noon,
    With hours that beckoned far away;
    It was too soon.

    O love Divine! the grief, the tears,
    The Life laid down for me,
    And my return of sinful years,
    Estranged from Thee!

    O late repentance! I resign
    What Thou hast made Thine own,
    And all my heart's best love is Thine,
    And Thine alone!

  11. Confession

    by E. N. S.

    Humbled before thy lofty throne,
    Almighty God I stand;
    My aggravated sins I own
    Thy fiercest wrath demand.

    But, Lord in pity look on me,
    To my request give ear;
    From justice I to mercy flee,
    With penitence and prayer.

    My sins, I own are numberless,
    Innumerably great;
    But, Lord, thy mercies them surpass,
    Thy love is infinite.

    In judgment enter not with me,
    For I've done nothing right;
    And justified I cannot be
    In thy all righteous sight.

    But, through the merits of thy Son,
    My pardon I request;
    And in thy presence hope to stand,
    Clothed in His righteousness.

    And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.

    – Psalm 143:2
    KJV
  12. Forgiveness

    by J. R. Eastwood

    O God, forgive the years and years
    Of worldly pride and hopes and fears;
    Forgive, and blot them from Thy book,
    The sins on which I mourn to look.

    Forgive the lack of service done
    For Thee, thro' life, from life begun;
    Forgive the vain desires to be
    All else but that desired by Thee.

    Forgive the love of human praise,
    The first false step in crooked ways,
    The choice of evil and the night,
    The heart close shut against the light.

    Forgive the love that could endure
    No cost to bless the sad and poor;
    Forgive, and give me grace to see
    The Life laid down in love for me.

  13. "Dead Unto Sin"

    by Amos Russel Wells

    I have buried me out of the land of sin,
    I have straightened my limbs in its last sad light.
    I have dug me a grave its desert within,
    I have lowered my being out of its sight.

    I have said the last prayers above the tomb
    Prayers of penitence, prayers of peace;
    And out of the land of sin I have come,
    Bathed in the joy of a full release.

    It was not I that was left behind,
    It is not my past that is huried there;
    I am a soul of another kind,
    And it is another name I bear.

    I am the man who is standing here,
    Glad and alert for an opening way;
    I am the soul with its record clear,
    I am the man who was born to-day.

    Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

    – Romans 6:11
    KJV
  14. He Shall Save His People From Their Sins

    by ENS

    What, my heart, again backsliding,
    Why wilt thou from Jesus flee?
    Still deceitful, still deceiving!
    Why forsake the narrow way?
    Does the Saviour's cross alarm thee?
    Is the yoke too much to bear?
    Or does smiling pleasure hire thee,
    With her baneful gilded snare?
    Shun, oh! shun, the vain deceiver,
    Look not on the glitt'ring bait;
    Remorse and sorrow chaseth ever
    Those who dwell within her gates;
    But return to Jesus, mourning,
    Humbly to His foot-stool flee;
    He will pardon thee returning,
    Graciously He'll pardon thee.
    Now take up the cross with pleasure,
    'Tis an easy yoke to bear!
    This the christian's greatest treasure,
    We are His peculiar care.

    And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. 

    – Matthew 1:21
    KJV
  15. Mercy and Pardon

    Traditional Yom Kippur hymn

    Come, let us bow and bend the knee,
    And seek with souls contrite
    And hearts uplifted, ceaselessly
    God's mercy infinite.

    All we like sheep have gone astray,
    But He will hear us when we pray,
    So that we yet may find to-day
    Mercy and pardon.

    For though our sins are numberless,
    And daily we His law transgress,
    Yet hope inspires the prayerful song :
    "Unto the Lord our God belong
    Mercy and pardon."

    God's loving mercies far exceed
    The measure of our sin :
    Then let us seek them in our need,
    Our shelter there to win.
    For though the wrath of God be just,
    Yet, bending humbly to the dust,
    We still may gain, in loving trust,
    Mercy and pardon.

    Come, we will hasten penitent
    To pray to Him Omniscient,
    To raise again the prayerful song :
    "Unto the Lord our God belong
    Mercy and pardon."

    Man cannot by his works alone
    His load of guilt annul.
    Let him with prayers besiege the throne
    Of Heaven most merciful.
    To those who seek Him earnestly,
    In penitent humility,
    The Lord our God will multiply
    Mercy and pardon.

    O'er heaven above, o'er earth below,
    His wide extended blessings flow,
    Then raise with joy the prayerful song :
    "Yea to the Lord our God belong
    Mercy and pardon."

  16. The Good Shepherd

    by William Edensor Littlewood

    Into a desolate land
    White with the drifted snow,
    Into a weary land
    Our truant footsteps go:
    Yet doth Thy care, O Father,
    Ever Thy wanderers keep;
    Still doth Thy love, O Shepherd,
    Follow Thy sheep.

    Over the pathless wild
    Do I not see Him come?
    Him who shall bear me back,
    Him who shall lead me home?
    Listen! between the storm-gusts
    Unto the straining ear,
    Comes not the cheering whisper,—
    "Jesus is near."

    Over me He is bending!
    Now I can safely rest,
    Found at the last, and clinging
    Close to the Shepherd's breast:
    So let me lie till the fold-bells
    Sound on the homeward track,
    And the rejoicing angels
    Welcome us back!

  17. On Hearing a Bird Singing in a Cage

    by Peter Burn

    Poor little thing, how can'st thou sing,
    Confin'd within the cage,
    Whilst other birds on bush and tree,
    In happy sport engage?
    Is it because thy home looks bright,
    That thou cans't sing with heart so light?
    Is it because thy master's kind,
    That thou dost such contentment find?
    Poor little thing, I pity thee—
    'Tis poor redress for Liberty?

    Perhaps, poor bird, thou'st never heard
    The music of the leaves,
    Nor felt the zephyr's soothing breath,
    On balmy summer eves;
    This may have been a liberal home,
    And thus have checked the wish to roam;
    With food and water always nigh,
    Content to live, content to die;
    Yet still, poor bird, I pity thee,
    Thou hast not tasted Liberty.

    Yet I confess in great distress,
    Man oft resembles thee—
    He rests within earth's gaudy cage,
    Whilst other souls are free;
    The present world is all to him,
    Beyond his prison all is dim,
    Bound—strongly bound by nature's chains,
    His spirit never freedom gains;—
    Oh, how delighted he would be,
    Could he but taste Christ's Liberty.

  18. Recessional

    by Rudyard Kipling

    God of our fathers, known of old,
    Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
    Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
    Dominion over palm and pine—
    Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
    Lest we forget—lest we forget!

    The tumult and the shouting dies;
    The Captains and the Kings depart:
    Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
    An humble and a contrite heart.
    Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
    Lest we forget—lest we forget!

    Far-called, our navies melt away;
    On dune and headland sinks the fire:
    Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
    Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
    Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
    Lest we forget—lest we forget!

    If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
    Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
    Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
    Or lesser breeds without the Law—
    Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
    Lest we forget—lest we forget!

    For heathen heart that puts her trust
    In reeking tube and iron shard,
    All valiant dust that builds on dust,
    And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
    For frantic boast and foolish word—
    Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

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