If, gracious God, in life’s green ardent year,
A thousand times thy patient love I tried;
With reckless heart, with conscience hard and sear,
Thy gifts perverted, and thy power defied!
Oh, grant me, now that wintry snows appear
around my brow, and youth’s bright promise hide, —
Grant me with reverential awe to hear
Thy holy voice, and in thy word confide!
Blot from my book of life its early stain!
Since days misspent will never more return,
My future path do thou in mercy trace;
So cause my soul with pious zeal to burn,
That all the trust, which in thy name I place,
Frail as I am, may not prove wholly vain!
Pietro Bembo (1470 - 1547) Italy
Translator not known
Source: A Library of Religious Poetry, ed. by Philip Schaff and Arthur Gilman, Funk & Wagnalls, 1885
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