"If I could shut the Gate"

I found this anonymous poem in The Oxford Book of Christian Verse edited by Lord David Cecil (London: Oxford University Press, 1940).

'If I Could Shut the Gate'

If I could shut the gate against my thoughts

And keep out sorrow from this room within,

Or memory could cancel all the notes

Of my misdeeds, and I unthink my sin:


How free, how clear, how clean my soul should lie,

Discharged of such a loathsome company!

Or were there other rooms without my heart


That did not to my conscience join so near,


Where I might lodge the thoughts of sin apart

That I might not their clamorous crying hear,


What peace, what joy, what ease should I possess,


Freed from their horrors that my soul oppress!

But, O my Savior, Who my refuge art,


Let Thy dear mercies stand 'twixt them and me,



And be the wall to separate my heart


So that I may at length repose me free;



That peace, and joy, and rest may be within,


And I remain divided from my sin.

"If I could shut the Gate"

I found this anonymous poem in The Oxford Book of Christian Verse edited by Lord David Cecil (London: Oxford University Press, 1940).

'If I Could Shut the Gate'

If I could shut the gate against my thoughts

And keep out sorrow from this room within,

Or memory could cancel all the notes

Of my misdeeds, and I unthink my sin:


How free, how clear, how clean my soul should lie,

Discharged of such a loathsome company!

Or were there other rooms without my heart


That did not to my conscience join so near,


Where I might lodge the thoughts of sin apart

That I might not their clamorous crying hear,


What peace, what joy, what ease should I possess,


Freed from their horrors that my soul oppress!

But, O my Savior, Who my refuge art,


Let Thy dear mercies stand 'twixt them and me,



And be the wall to separate my heart


So that I may at length repose me free;



That peace, and joy, and rest may be within,


And I remain divided from my sin.