Few are thy days and full of woe. M. Bruce. [The Resurrection.] From evidence elsewhere produced l we believe the original of this hymn to have been written by M. Bruce about 1764; that the same was handed by Bruce's father to John Logan a short time after Bruce's death (in 1767), and that it was published by J. Logan in his Poems, 1781, p. 95, No. 2, as his own. The nearest approach to the original text now attainable is given in Dr. Mackelvie's edition of Bruce's Works with Life, 1837,pp. 254-57; and Dr. Grosart's Works of M. Bruce, 1865, pp. 127-130. In the same year that Logan's Poems were published, the new and revised edition of the Scottish Translations and Paraphrases was issued, and therein, as No. viii., was given a paraphrase of Job xiv. 1-15, in which six of the fourteen stanzas are almost entirely from this hymn, and the remaining eight are but the amplification of the thoughts which are found in the remaining stanzas of the original. This version, which has been in use in the Church of Scotland for more than 100 years, should therefore be designated "Michael Bruce altered by John Logan."
In addition to abbreviations of the text which begin with stanza i., the following centos are in common use:—
1. All nature dies and lives again. This cento in Dabney's Psalms & Hymns 1821, and later editions and other collections, is composed of stanzas vi.-viii., xii.-xiv.
2. The mighty flood that rolls. Composed of stanzas x.-iv. altered to S.M. in the American Prayer Book Psalms & Hymns, 1826, and later editions, and others.
3. The winter past, reviving flower. Composed of stanzas viii., ix. altered, with three additional stanzas from another source. This is No. 306 in the American German Reformed Psalms & Hymns, 1834, and later editions.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)