| |
| LORD! How fast the minutes fly | |
| ’Twixt us and the hour we die! | |
| Days are weeks before we know; | |
| Weeks to months untimely grow; | |
| And behind each glad New Year | 5 |
| Death his ambush sets more near. | |
| |
| Death!—by whomsoever heard, | |
| ’Mongst all words most fearful word! | |
| —Quit each thing familiar here! | |
| Face to face with God appear! | 10 |
| Change no mortal tongue can tell:— | |
| All’s in that one syllable! | |
| |
| Hour of dread farewells to be! | |
| Faces more than life to me; | |
| Little lips that beg me stay; | 15 |
| Tears I shall not wipe away; | |
| Faithful hand, yet clasp’d in mine:— | |
| Death Triumphant!—all is thine! | |
| |
| Author of man’s mystic lot, | |
| God, Thy ways as ours are not: | 20 |
| Thou hast destined us to be | |
| Seized by death, yet safe in Thee: | |
| Love Immortal casting out | |
| Feverish fear, and freezing doubt. | |
| |
| —In the spaces of the night, | 25 |
| In the depths of dim affright, | |
| Jesus, with our trials tried, | |
| Do not Thou forsake my side! | |
| Childlike on Thy faithful breast | |
| Hold my heart, and bid me rest. | 30 |
| |
| Like a sword above my head | |
| Death is hanging by a thread; | |
| Yet, O gracious Lord on high, | |
| Surely Thou wilt hear my cry, | |
| By Thy life laid down for me | 35 |
| Turning death to victory! | |
| |
| Only this can light the grave, | |
| Thou hast died:—and Thou wilt save:— | |
| Thou by lying low in earth | |
| Hast assured our second birth, | 40 |
| Bidding in the sunless tomb | |
| Amaranthine roses bloom. | |
| |
| If the spirit shivering shrink | |
| From annihilation’s brink, | |
| Through the soul like sunshine come, | 45 |
| —“Death is but another womb: | |
| Born through woe to human breath, | |
| Ye are born to God through death.” | |
| |
| —Nearer than the nearest by, | |
| Be beside me when I die! | 50 |
| With Thy strength my weakness nerve | |
| Ne’er through fear from faith to swerve; | |
| So, Death’s storm-vex’d portal past, | |
| Safe in Thee to sleep at last. | |
| |
