Funeral of a Youth

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The morning flowers display their sweets

Author: Samuel Wesley
Published in 167 hymnals

Representative Text

1 The morning flowers display their sweets,
And gay their silken leaves unfold,
As careless of the noontide heats,
As fearless of the evening cold.

2 Nipt by the wind's unkindly blast,
Parched by the sun's directer ray,
The momentary glories waste,
The short-lived beauties die away.

3 So blooms the human face divine,
When youth its pride of beauty shows;
Fairer than spring the colours shine,
And sweeter than the virgin rose.

4 Worn by the slowly rolling years,
Broken by sickness in a day,
The fading glory disappears,
The short-lived beauties die away.

5 Yet these, new rising from the tomb,
With lustre brighter far shall shine;
Revive with ever-during bloom,
Safe from diseases and decline.

6 Let sickness blast, and death devour,
If heaven must recompense our pains;
Perish the grass, and fade the flower,
If firm the word of God remains.

Source: Methodist Hymn and Tune Book: official hymn book of the Methodist Church #559

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Author: Samuel Wesley

Samuel Wesley, M.A., the younger, was the eldest child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, and was born in or near London in 1691. He received his early education from his mother, who always took a special interest in him as her firstborn. In 1704 he went to Westminster School, where he was elected King's Scholar in 1707. Westminster had, under the mastership of Dr. Busby for 55 years, attained the highest reputation for scholarship, and Samuel Wesley, as a classical scholar, was not unworthy of his school. In 1709, Dr. Spratt, Bishop of Rochester, patronised the young scholar, and frequently invited him to Bromley. In 1711 he went with a Westminster studentship to Christ Church, Oxford, and having taken his degree, returned to Westminster as an… Go to person page >

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First Line:	The morning flowers display their sweets
Title:	Funeral of a Youth
Author:	Samuel Wesley
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

The morning flowers display their sweets. S. Wesley, jun. [Death.] Appeared in David Lewis's collection of Miscellaneous Poems, 1726; in Wesley's Poems on Several Occasions, 1736; and in the 1862 reprint of the same, 1862, p. 81, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines. In the Poems it is headed Verses on Isaiah xl. 6, 8. Occasioned by the death of a Young Lady." It was also given in the Wesley Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1743, and in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1780, No. 44 (ed. 1875, No. 46). It is in extensive use in Great Britain and America.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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