1 I will of my ways be heedful,
that I sin not with my tongue;
for my mouth a curb is needful,
while the wicked round me throng.
2 Thus I said, and dumb remained;
from my lips no sound was heard;
from good words I even refrained,
but my inmost soul was stirred.

3 Long my heart was in me burning,
ere the smothered flame out-brake,
and, the enkindled words returning,
thus impatiently I spake:
4 Teach me, Lord, the number meting
of my days, how brief it is;
make me see and know how fleeting,
vain and sad a life is this.

5 Life a span is at the longest;
mine is nothing, Lord, to thee;
in his best estate and strongest
man is only vanity.
6 Yea, he fleeting past us goeth
in a shadow brief and vain,
heaping riches; but none knoweth
who shall gather them again.

7 And where, Lord, is my reliance?
All my hope is fixed on thee.
From my sin, and the defiance
of the foolish, save thou me!
8 I, because it was thy pleasure,
murmured not, nor silence broke;
yet remove thy plague: o'er measure
grievous is thy heavy stroke.

9 When for sin or slighted duty
man corrected is by thee,
but a moth-worn robe his beauty,
and but vanity is he.
10 See my tears, regard my danger;
be not deaf unto my prayer;
for a sojourner and stranger
am I, as my fathers were.

11 Spare me, yet a little spare me,
to recover strength, before
thy dread summons hence shall bear me
to be seen on earth no more!