I will not let Thee go,
Hope of my heart!
From death, from death I fly;
For life, for life I cry:
And life Thou art.
Have I not stood beneath Thy cross to see
My pardon purchased by Thy agony?
O Lamb of God,
By those red drops that flow,
I will not let Thee go!
Ah, no!

I will not let Thee go!
Was it in vain
That Thou didst bow Thy head
In a poor sinner’s stead?
Was it in vain
That all the waves of wrath swept over Thee,
While, in Thine arms up-borne,
They reached not me?
Ark of my refuge, whom no floods o’erflow,
I will not let Thee go!
Ah, no!

I will not let Thee go!
Yet many a day
’Tis but a trembling clasp,
A faint and feeble grasp,
My hand can lay;
Yet in its weakness that poor hand is pressed
In Thine, O Savior, whence no power can wrest.
O joy, to feel the everlasting arms, and know
Thou wilt not let me go!
Ah, no!

Thou wilt not let me go!
Oh, wondrous grace!
I nailed it to the tree,
The hand that shelters me
In its embrace.
Here faith can rest, nor life nor death shall part
The soul whose home is the Redeemer’s heart.
He who hath sought me, bought me, loved me so,
Will never let me go!
Ah, no!

Ellen H. Willis
I Left It All with Je­sus and Oth­er Po­ems, 1875