Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Psalm 90:10
Words: James Montgomery, Original Hymns (London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1853), number 216, alt. Past, Present, Future.
Music: Crimond Jessie S. Irvine, in The Northern Psalter, 1872. Harmony by David Grant (🔊
).
Alternate Tunes:
A hundred years ago, not one
Of us had sprung to birth;
A hundred years to come, and none
Can hope to walk this earth.
We are, we were not! here our mind
Looks round with hopes and fears;
This point is Time; before, behind,
Eternity appears.
’Tis yet, through grace, within our power,
To choose what we would be;
On the decision of an hour,
Depends eternity.
This hour! this moment, let us take
The narrow upward path;
This hour, this moment, all forsake
The broad road down to wrath.
O Lord, our shepherd! lest like sheep,
Thy children go astray,
Feed us with knowledge, guide and keep
Our souls in Thy right way.
So, when a hundred years are fled,
Remembering this day’s choice,
On earth, though numbered with the dead,
In Heaven, may we rejoice.