My Joy, my Life, my Crown of bliss,

My heart was musing all the day,

Fain would it speak; yet only this,

“My Joy, my Life, my Crown,” could say.

Few as they are, and void of art,

Yet slight not, Lord, these humble words:

Fine is that hymn which speaks the heart,

The heart that to the lines accords.

He who requires His creature’s time,

And all his soul, and strength, and mind,

Complains, if heartless flows the rhyme,

What makes the hymn is still behind:

The scanty verse himself supplies,

But let the fervent heart be moved;

And when it says with longing sighs,

“O, could I love!” God writeth, “Loved!”