Classic Poem

My friends in vain you chide my tears
From founts unknown to you they flow:
Thou Lord alone can'st count my fears,
The weight of my affliction know.

I ask Thee not to dry mine eyes
While here in Sorrow's world I dwell:
But O command their streams to rise
From blest Repentance' deepest well!

O strike this heart by grief congealed,
Which beams of love could never melt:
When to that touch it once shall yield
Grief's numbing hand shall be unfelt.

Then then these tears that daily rush
As if my very heart to drown
Will seem too tardily to gush
Too scantily to trickle down.

Ne'er shall I pray the streams may cease
Till deeper floods on floods arise
Do Thou but smile on their increase
And still the waters with thine eyes!