I

Me Lord? can?st thou mispend 
 One word, misplace one look on me? 
 Call?st me thy Love, thy Friend? 
 Can this poor soul the object be 
Of these love-glances, those life-kindling eyes? 
What? I the Centre of thy arms embraces? 
 Of all thy labour I the prize? 
 Love never mocks, Truth never lies. 
Oh how I quake: Hope fear, fear hope displaces: 
I would, but cannot hope: such wondrous love amazes. 
 
II

 See, I am black as night, 
 See I am darkness: dark as hell. 
 Lord thou more fair than light; 
 Heav?ns Sun thy Shadow; can Sunns dwell 
With Shades? ?twixt light, and darkness what commerce? 
True: thou art darkness, I thy Light: my ray 
 Thy mists, and hellish foggs shall pierce. 
 With me, black soul, with me converse. 
I make the foul December flowry May, 
Turn thou thy night to me: I?le turn thy night to day. 
 
III

 See Lord, see I am dead: 
 Tomb?d in my self: my self my grave 
 A drudge: so born, so bred: 
 My self even to my self a slave. 
Thou Freedom, Life: can Life, and Liberty 
Love bondage, death? Thy Freedom I: I tyed 
 To loose thy bonds: be bound to me: 
 My Yoke shall ease, my bonds shall free. 
Dead soul, thy Spring of life, my dying side: 
There dye with me to live: to live in thee I dyed.