| |
| O LORD, 1 turne not away thy face | |
| From him that lyeth prostrate, | |
| Lamenting sore his sinfull life | |
| Before thy mercy-gate: | |
| |
| Which gate thou openest wide to those | 5 |
| That doe lament their sinne: | |
| Shut not that gate against me, Lord, | |
| But let me enter in. | |
| |
| And call me not to mine accounts, | |
| How I haue liued here; | 10 |
| For then I know right well, O Lord, | |
| How vile I shall appeare. | |
| |
| I need not to confesse my life, | |
| I am sure thou canst tell: | |
| What I haue beene and what I am, | 15 |
| I know thou knowest it well. | |
| |
| O Lord, thou knowest what things be past, | |
| And eke the things that bee; | |
| Thou knowest also what is to come: | |
| Nothing is hid from thee. | 20 |
| |
| Before the heauens and earth were made, | |
| Thou knowest what things were then, | |
| As all things else that haue been since | |
| Among the sonnes of men. | |
| |
| And can the things that I haue done | 25 |
| Be hidden from thee then? | |
| Nay, nay, thou knowest them all, O Lord, | |
| Where they were done, and when. | |
| |
| Wherefore with teares I come to thee, | |
| To beg and to intreate; | 30 |
| Euen as the child that hath done euill, | |
| And feareth to be beate. | |
| |
| So come I to thy mercy-gate, | |
| Where mercy doth abound; | |
| Requiring mercy for my sinne, | 35 |
| To heale my deadly wound. | |
| |
| O Lord, I need not to repeate | |
| What I doe beg or craue; | |
| Thou knowest, O Lord, before I aske, | |
| The thing that I would haue. | 40 |
| |
| Mercy, good Lord, mercie I aske, | |
| This is the totall summe: | |
| For mercy, Lord, is all my sute; | |
| Lord, let thy mercy come. | |
