To mercy, pity, peace and love

Representative Text

1 To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
all pray in their distress,
and to those virtues of delight
return their thankfulness,
return their thankfulness.

2 For Mercy has a human heart,
and Pity a human face;
and Love, the human form divine,
and Peace, the human dress,
and Peace, the human dress.

3 Then every one, of every clime,
that prays in deep distress,
prays to the human form divine —
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

Source: Singing the Living Tradition #93

Author: William Blake

Blake, William, poet and painter, born 1757, and died 1827. Published Songs of Innocence in 1789, in which appeared a poem in 9 stanzas of 4 lines beginning. "Can I see another's woe" (Sympathy), and headed "On Another's Sorrow." (See also The Poems of William Blake, &c, Lond., W. Pickering, 1874, p. 105.) This poem is repeated in Martineau's Hymns, &c, 1873, and others. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: To mercy, pity, peace and love
Author: William Blake
Meter: 8.6.8.6
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

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Singing the Living Tradition #93

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The New English Hymnal #469

Include 15 pre-1979 instances
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