The Cyber Hymnal ‎#9515

9515. Life Is A Span, A Fleeting Hour

1 Life is a span, a fleeting hour,
How soon the vapor flies!
Man is a tender, transient flower,
That e’en in blooming dies!

2 Death spreads like winter’s frozen arms,
And beauty smiles no more;
Ah! where are now those rising charms
Which pleased our eyes before?

3 The once loved form, now cold and dead,
Each mournful thought employs;
And nature weeps, her comforts fled,
And withered all her joys.

4 But wait the interposing gloom
And lo, winter flies!
And dressed in beauty’s fairest bloom
The flowery tribes arise.

5 Hope looks beyond the bounds of time;
When what we now deplore,
Shall rise in full immortal prime,
And bloom to fade no more.

6 Then cease, fond nature, cease thy tears,
Religion points on high;
There everlasting spring appears,
And joys that cannot die.

Text Information

• First Line: Life is a span, a fleeting hour
• Title: Life Is A Span, A Fleeting Hour
• Author: Anne Steele
• Meter: CM
• Language: English
• Source: Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional, 1760
• Copyright: Public Domain

Tune Information

• Name: BEATITUDO
• Composer: John Bacchus Dykes
• Meter: CM
• Key: G Major
• Source: Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1875
• Copyright: Public Domain