Stanzas, On The Same Occasion

By Robert Burns

Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
Have I so found it full of pleasing charms!
Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between:
Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?
Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode?
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms:
I tremble to approach an angry God,
And justly smart beneath His sin-avenging rod.

Fain would I say, Forgive my foul offence!
Fain promise never more to disobey;
But should my Author health again dispense,
Again I might desert fair virtue's way:
Again in folly's part might go astray;
Again exalt the brute and sink the man;
Then how should I for Heav'nly mercy pray,
Who act so counter Heav'nly mercy's plan?
Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran

O Thou great Governor of all below!
If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,
Or still the tumult of the raging sea:
With that controlling pow'r assist ev'n me,
Those headlong furious passions to confine
For all unfit I feel my pow'rs to be,
To rule their torrent in th' allowèd line;
O, aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine!