And am I on­ly born to die?
And must I sud­den­ly com­ply
With na­ture’s stern de­cree?
What af­ter death for me re­mains?
Celestial joys, or hell­ish pains,
To all eter­ni­ty?

How then ought I on earth to live,
While God pro­longs the kind re­prieve
And props the house of clay?
My sole con­cern, my sin­gle care,
To watch, and trem­ble, and pre­pare
Against the fa­tal day.

No room for mirth or trif­ling here,
For world­ly hope, or world­ly fear,
If life so soon is gone:
If now the Judge is at the door,
And all man­kind must stand be­fore
The in­ex­or­able throne!

No mat­ter which my thoughts em­ploy,
A mo­ment’s mi­se­ry, or joy;
But O! when both shall end,
Where shall I find my des­tined place?
Shall I my ev­er­last­ing days
With fiends, or an­gels spend?

Nothing is worth a thought be­neath
But how I may es­cape the death
That ne­ver, ne­ver dies;
How make mine own elect­ion sure,
And, when I fail on earth, se­cure
A man­sion in the skies.

Jesus, vouch­safe a pi­ty­ing ray,
Be Thou my guide, be Thou my way
To glo­ri­ous hap­pi­ness;
Ah, write the par­don on my heart,
And when­so­e’er I hence de­part,
Let me de­part in peace.