| W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895. | | | | “I Bear in My Body the Marks of the Lord Jesus” | | Edward Hayes Plumptre (1821–1891) |
| | | “THERE lives no man whose flesh is scarred like mine, | |
| The scourge and rod have graven deep their brands, | |
| And Lystra’s stones have left | |
| A wound that will not heal. | |
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| Fastings and watchings, tossings on the deep, | 5 |
| Hot suns, keen frosts upon the mountain height, | |
| These have made life as death, | |
| And brought the snows of age. | |
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| And now I fail and wither ere my time, | |
| The sharp thorn pierceth ever more and more; | 10 |
| But this, at least, I gain; | |
| My life henceforth is free. | |
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| Free, because branded as the slave of Christ, | |
| To my own Master I or stand or fall: | |
| Let man from troubling cease, | 15 |
| And leave me as I am. | |
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| Debaters, slanderers, building fallen towers, | |
| Warring against the citadel of Truth, | |
| Ye cannot touch the peace | |
| Deep hid with Christ in God.” | 20 |
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| So spake the great Apostle, and we too, | |
| By the same path may equal freedom gain, | |
| Secure in inward calm, | |
| Though storm-blasts round us rage. | |
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| And in that faith we bid our troublers cease, | 25 |
| The tempters to despair, or doubt, or pride, | |
| They shall not mar our peace, | |
| Nor separate from Him. | |
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| No, neither life, nor death, nor pain, nor joy, | |
| Nor all that worketh in the height or depth, | 30 |
| God’s chosen ones can hurt | |
| Or banish from His love. | | | | |
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