1 Soon with resistless arm shall death
Assert its sovereign claim,
And summon man to yield his breath
To Him whence first it came.

2 Like crowded forest trees we stand,
And some are marked to fall:
The axe will smite at God’s command,
And soon shall smite us all.

3 Green as the bay tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,
The gay, the thoughtless, I have seen;
I passed—and they were gone.

4 No present health can health ensure
For yet an hour to come,
No human power our life secure
And save us from the tomb.

5 Lord! may we mark the awful truth,
Revealed in sacred page—
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.

6 Lord! teach me henceforth so to live,
And number all my days,
That in Thy strength I now may strive
To walk in wisdom’s ways.

7 And since the fatal shafts of death
Are flying all around,
Prepare us to resign our breath,
Nor dread the threatened wound.