[Main] [Poetry Index]* [Poets] 1991 Denson Revision: [Titles] [Pages] [First Lines]* 2012 Cooper Revision: [Titles] [Pages] [First Lines]*
* Index of the First Line of Each Stanza, the Fifth Line of Eight Line Stanzas, and the First Line of the Chorus

Oh! once I had a glorious view

Perplexed, but not in Despair.

Poet: Mercer's Cluster, 1823 (Stanzas); Isaac Watts, 1721 (Chorus)**

Meter: Common Meter Double (8,6,8,6,8,6,8,6)
Location in The Sacred Harp
Stanza Denson Cooper
1
Oh! once I had a glorious view
Of my redeeming Lord!
He said, "I'll be a God to you"--
And I believed his word:
But now I have a deeper stroke,
Than all my groanings are:
My God has me of late forsook--
He's gone, I know not where.

(Chorus)
Columbus 67, Stanza 1
Columbus 67, Stanza 1
Chorus**
O That I knew the sacred place,
Where I might find my God!
I'd bow before his gracious face,
And pour my woes abroad.

2
O what immortal joys I felt,
On that celestial day,
When my hard heart began to melt
By love dissolve'd away!
But my complaint is bitter now,
For all my joys are gone;
I've stray'd!--I'm left!--I know not how:
The light's from me withdrawn.

(Chorus)
Columbus 67, Stanza 2
Columbus 67, Stanza 2
3
Once I could joy the saints to meet,
To me they were most dear;
I then could stoop to wash their feet,
And shed a joyful tear:
But now I meet them as the rest,
And with them joyless stay;
My conversation's spiritless,
Or else I've naught to say.

(Chorus)
Columbus 67, Stanza 3
Columbus 67, Stanza 3
4
I once could mourn o'er dying men,
And long'd their souls to win;
I travail'd for their poor children,
And warned them of their sin:
But now my heart's so careless grown,
Although they're drown'd in vice,
My bowels o'er them cease to yearn--
My tears have left mine eyes.

(Chorus)
Columbus 67, Stanza 4
Columbus 67, Stanza 4
5
I forward go in duty's way,
But can't perceive him there;
Then backward on the road I stray,
But cannot find him there:
On the left hand, where he doth work,
Among the wicked crew,
And on the right, I find him not,
Among the favor'd few.

(Chorus)
Columbus 67, Stanza 5
Columbus 67, Stanza 5
6
What shall I do?--shall I lie down,
And sink in deep despair?
Will he forever wear a frown,
Nor hear my feeble pray'r?
No: he will put his strength in me,
He knows the way I've stroll'd;
And when I'm tried sufficiently,
I shall come forth as gold.

(Chorus)
Columbus 67, Stanza 6
Columbus 67, Stanza 6
** The chorus in this hymn poem was the first stanza of Isaac Watts' O That I knew the secret Place,.
Mercer, Jesse. The Cluster of Spiritual Songs, Divine Hymns, and Sacred Poems; Being Chiefly a Collection. Third Edition. Philadelphia: William W. Woodward, 1823.