[Page 48]

[MORAL SONG] IV. The THIEF.

I.
1 WHY should I deprive my Neighbour
2 Of his Goods against his Will?
3 Hands were made for honest Labour,
4 Not to plunder or to steal.
II.
5 'Tis a foolish Self-deceiving
6 By such Tricks to hope for Gain:
7 All that's ever got by Thieving
8 Turns to Sorrow, Shame, and Pain.
III.
9 Have not Eve and Adam taught us
10 Their sad Profit to compute?
11 To what dismal State they brought us
12 When they stole forbidden Fruit?
[Page 49]
IV.
13 Oft we see a young Beginner
14 Practise little pilf'ring Ways,
15 Till grown up a harden'd Sinner;
16 Then the Gallows ends his Days.
V.
17 Theft will not be always hidden,
18 Tho' we fancy none can spy:
19 When we take a Thing forbidden,
20 GOD beholds it with his Eye.
VI.
21 Guard my Heart, O GOD of Heav'n,
22 Lest I covet what's not mine:
23 Lest I steal what is not giv'n,
24 Guard my Heart and Hands from Sin.

Text

  • TEI/XML [chunk] (XML - 46K / ZIP - 5.6K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 852 / ZIP - 698 )

Facsimile (Source Edition)

(Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [Vet. A5 f.3516].)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - [an error occurred while processing this directive])

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): [MORAL SONG] IV. The THIEF.
Author: Isaac Watts
Themes:
Genres: song

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Watts, Isaac, 1674-1748. Divine songs: attempted in easy language for the use of children. By I. Watts, D.D. London: Printed for J. Buckland; J. F. and C. Rivington; T. Longman; W. Fenner; T. Field; and E. and C. Dilly, 1777, pp. 48-49. xii,58,[2]p.; 12⁰. (ESTC T185045; OTA K123515.000) (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [Vet. A5 f.3516].)

Editorial principles

The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by Isaac Watts