Still He Bends To Hear Me Sing

Catholicism with its persecution and religious restrictions was still at work in France in the late 1600s, with many godly believers killed or imprisoned. This included the saintly Madame Guyon. Having suffered severe abuse in her family context, she found a strong faith in God, advocating that all could pray at all times, that life itself could be a life of prayer and meditation. She argued that it was God who saved by grace, that it was not possible to work for our own salvation. For this, she was imprisoned in the Bastille.

For seven years, Madame Guyon was in a cell lying below the surface of the ground, with no light other than candlelight. While imprisoned, she wrote the poem ‘A Prisoners Song’. Here are the first two verses:

A little bird I am,

Shut from the fields of air;

And in my cage I sit and sing

To Him Who placed me there;

Well pleased a prisoner to be,

Because, my God, it pleases Thee.

 

Naught have I else to do:

I sing the whole day long;

And He Whom I most love to please

Doth listen to my song:

He caught and bound my wandering wing;

But still He bends to hear me sing.