Olney Hymn 34 The Waiting Soul

Breathe from the gentle south,

O Lord,

And cheer me from the north;

Blow on the treasures of thy word,

And call the spices forth!

I wish,

Thou knowest, to be resign'd,

And wait with patient hope;

But hope delay'd fatigues the mind,

And drinks the spirits up.

Help me to reach the distant goal;

Confirm my feeble knee;

Pity the sickness of a soul That faints for love of Thee!

Cold as I feel this heart of mine,

Yet, since I feel it so,

It yields some hope of life divine Within, however low.

I seem forsaken and alone,

I hear the lion roar;

And every door is shut but one,

And that is Mercy's door.

There, till the dear Deliverer come,

I'll wait with humble prayer;

And when He calls His exile home,

The Lord shall find him there.'This Hymn, which has not been marked as Cowper's in the Olney Collection, and consequently not included in any edition of his works, is here restored to him on the authority of Mrs.

Johnson, the widow of his excellent kinsman.' ~The Poetical Works of William Cowper, edited, with a Critical Memoir, by William Michael Rossetti.

Collins, ca. 1880's.

It is included in Grimshawe's editions of the 1830's onward.