The moon shines bright and the stars give a light
A lit­tle be­fore the day:
Our migh­ty Lord He looked on us,
And bade us awake and pray.

Awake, awake, good peo­ple all,
Awake, and you shall hear,
The Lord our God died on the cross
For us He loved so dear.

O fair, O fair Je­ru­sa­lem,
When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sor­rows have an end,
Thy joy that I may see?

The fields were green as green could be,
When from His glo­ri­ous seat,
Our bless­èd Fa­ther wa­tered us,
With His hea­ven­ly dew so sweet.

And for the sav­ing of our souls
Christ died up­on the cross;
We ne’er shall do for Je­sus Christ
As He hath done for us.

The life of man is but a span,
And cut down in its flow­er,
We’re here to­day, to­mor­row gone,
The crea­tures of an hour.

Instruct and teach your child­ren well,
The while that you are here;
It will be bet­ter for your soul,
When your corpse lies on the bier.

Today you may be alive and well,
Worth ma­ny a thou­sand pound;
Tomorrow dead and cold as clay,
Your corpse laid un­der­ground.

With one turf at thine head, O man,
And an­oth­er at thy feet;
Thy good deeds and thy bad, O man,
Will al­to­ge­ther meet.

My song is done, I must be gone,
I can stay no long­er here;
God bless you all, both great and small,
And send you a joy­ful new year!