1.

God of my health! To Thee by day,
To Thee by night, aloud I pray:
O bend thine ear, and let my cries
Accepted to thy throne arise.

2.

Satiate of griefs, with downward feet
I seek the hollow grave's retreat,
And, strengthless, mingle with the train
That fill its melancholy reign.

3.

A Guest familiar of the Dead,
Lo, in the dust I make my bed,
As One, on whom thy stroke its aim
Directs, and blots from Earth his name.

4.

As, lost to ev'ry human eye,
Deep in the lowest pit I lie,
Thy wrath incumbent whelms me o'er,
And all thy billows round me roar.

5.

No friendly feet, approach me nigh,
But backward all abhorrent fly;
With horror struck, the sight forego,
And shun th' infection of my woe.

6.

While, in my prison fast immur'd,
My eye with sorrow's mist obscur'd,
With ceaseless moan my suppliant hand
To Thee, great Monarch, I expand.

7.

Shall, whom the bands of death infold,
The wonders of thy pow'r behold,
And, starting from the tomb, thy Name
In hymns of joyful praise proclaim?

8.

Shall echo on thy Mercies dwell
Amid the dark sepulchral cell?
Or through Destruction's vaults profound
Thy Truth, eternal God, resound?

9.

Shall regions that exclude the day
Thy miracles to view display,
And pale Oblivion's confines drear
The records of thy Justice hear?

10.

To Thee I call; to Thee in pray'r
At earliest dawn disclose my care:
Lord! why hast Thou my soul repell'd?
Why thus thy quick'ning beams withheld?

11.

Ere yet to manly years I grew,
My fainting heart thy terrors knew,
And through succeeding life sustains
A long vicissitude of pains.

12.

Beneath thy heavy hand I groan;
Woes heap'd on woes come rolling on,
And o'er me hang, ordain'd by Thee,
Tremendous as a swelling sea.

13.

Each Friend, that wont my board to share,
Each kind Consoler of my care,
As round I look, my sight evades,
And seeks concealment's thickest shades.