%ISOlat1; %ISOlat2; %ISOnum; %ISOpub; ]> Margaret Dickson's penetential Confession. University of California - Santa Barbara The Early Modern Center English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA) Director Patricia Fumerton Associate Director Carl G Stahmer 1724-1724 Early Modern Center, University of California Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 07/16/2014 34308

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Patricia Fumerton Early Modern Center - English Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93105 United States of America EMail: pfumer@english.ucsb.edu

T171747 WHat former Friend may ease my trou-bled Thought / When Mid-night Darkness comprehends me round, Information in this section of the Source Description refers to the original ballad manuscript. 1: 76 Margaret Dickson's penetential Confession. Margaret Dickson's penitential Confession. 1724-1724

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WHat former Friend may ease my trou- bled Thought When Mid-night Darkness comprehends me round, And I'm before the dread Tribunal brought, Call'd by the last and awful Trumpet's Sound. My former Crimes I to my Mind now call, And all the gross Trespasses think upon Where I've an Actor been; no Wretch alive Deserves more certain and more sure a Doom. The whole Creation was ordain'd by God, The Wonders of his Truth to magnify, But he'll them chasten with his awful Rod, When they slight Grace that's set before their Eye. My younger Days I lavished away In Frailties that's too common unto Youth, And to each Sin I made my self a Prey, By which my Vices were in every Mouth. But yet that awful God, whose Frown can make The Vassal Globe of his Creation shake, Did mark my Steps, brandished my Sin Of Murder, and I was caught therein. Before the Justice Seat soon was I born, Where lives no Fraud, nor Witness are subborn, Who found me guilty of that barbarous Crime, And did, by Law, end this wretched Life of mine. But God, whose Mercy does so far extend, That from one Pole to th'other it doth not end, Did me preserve, as an Example high Of divine Omnipotence, which humane Sight can't spy.
So I'm absolved from Men's servile Laws, Who dive into th' Effects, but not the Cause. A Life of Sanctity I purpos'd hence to lead, But nat'ral Corruptions did almighty Graco exceed. Had it but pleas'd my Great, Almighty Maker, To take my Soul when finish'd was the Creature, Into his High, Celestial Courts above, Then I'd been blest with his Almighty Love; At his Tribunal then could I appear With joyful Face, nor sh[e]d a sinful Tear: My Life, I hope, shou'd ended been in Glory, And not relaps'd to a more fatal Story, But all of new my Crimes I do repeat, Nor thinks upon the Terrors of my Fate. O thou, my God, my Soul do thou enligh[t]en, That so my Faith, by Christ, I soon may heighten. 'Tis not the painful Agonies of Death, Nor all the gloomy Horrors of the Grave, Were these the worst, unmov'd I'd yeild my Breath, And, with a Smile, the King of Terrors brave. But there's an After-day, 'tis that I fear, Ah, who shall hide me from that angry Brow, Already I the dreadful Accents hear, Depart from me, and that forever too.
FINIS.