My Spirit Longs for Thee

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My spirit longs for Thee

Author: John Byrom
Published in 117 hymnals

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Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1 My spirit longs for thee
within my troubled breast,
though I unworthy be
of so divine a guest.

2 Of so divine a guest
unworthy though I be,
yet has my heart no rest
unless it come from thee.

3 Unless it come from thee,
in vain I look around;
in all that I can see
no rest is to be found.

4 No rest is to be found
but in thy blessed love:
O let my wish be crowned,
and send it from above!

Source: Ancient and Modern: hymns and songs for refreshing worship #130a

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Author: John Byrom

John Byrom was born in 1691, at Manchester, where his father was a linen-draper. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 1708; became a Fellow of the College in 1714; took his M.A. in 1716, and then proceeded to Montpelier, where he studied medicine. He afterwards abandoned medicine, settled in London, and obtained his living by teaching a system of shorthand, which he had projected. He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1724. He died Sept. 28, 1763. The first edition of Byrom's poems appeared in 1773, in two volumes. A more complete edition was published in 1814. Byrom did not seek publicity as an author, but wrote verses only for recreation. --Annotations of the Hymnal, Charles Hutchins, M.A., 1872… Go to person page >

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