Alas! what hourly dangers rise. Anne Steele. [Watchfulness.] First published in her Poems on Subjects chiefly Devotional, 1760, vol. i. pp. 79-80, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, and entitled "Watchfulness and Prayer," Matt. xxvi. 7 It was also reprinted in subsequent editions of the Poems, and in Sedgwick's reprint of her Hymns, 1863. In Williams & Boden's Collection, 1801, No. 362, it was abbreviated to 4 stanzas, and this example has been mostly followed to the present day. Its use in Great Britain is very limited; but in America it is somewhat extensive, and varies in length from 3 to 5 stanzas, the Sabbath Hymn Book, 1858, No. 637, being an exception in favour of the complete text, with the single alteration of " my" to "mine eyes" in stanza 1.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)