George Herbert


THE HOLDFAST.           

I THREATNED to observe the strict decree
        Of my deare God with all my power and might :
        But I was told by one, it could not be ;
Yet I might trust in God to be my light.

Then will I trust, said I, in him alone.
        Nay, ev’n to trust in him, was also his :
        We must confesse, that nothing is our own.
Then I confesse that he my succour is :

But to have nought is ours, not to confesse
        That we have nought.   I stood amaz’d at this,
        Much troubled, till I heard a friend expresse,
That all things were more ours by being his.
        What Adam had, and forfeited for all,
        Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.




Source:
Herbert, George. The Poetical Works of George Herbert.
New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1857. 182.



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