
Author: Anne Steele Meter: 8.6.8.6 Appears in 165 hymnals Lyrics: 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. Used With Tune: BEATITUDO Text Sources: Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional, 1760
Life Is A Span, A Fleeting Hour