
All around us, fair with flowers,
Fields of beauty sleeping lie;
All around us clarion voices
Call to duty stern and high.
Thankfully we will rejoice in
All the beauty God has given;
But beware it does not win us
From the work ordained of Heaven.
Following every voice of mercy
With a trusting, loving heart;
Let us in life’s earnest labor
Still be sure to do our part.
Now, to-day, and not to-morrow,
Let us work with all our might,
Lest the wretched faint and perish
In the coming stormy night.
Now, to-day, and not to-morrow,—
Lest, before to-morrow’s sun,
We too, mournfully departing,
Shall have left our work undone.
Source: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (15th ed.) #306
First Line: | All around us [thee], fair with flowers |
Title: | Awake to Duty |
Language: | English |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
All around us, fair with flowers.[Life's Work.] Given as Anonymous in Longfellow and Johnson's Book of Hymns, 1846, No. 306, and their Hymns of the Spirit, Boston, U.S.A., 1864, No. 576, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines.
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)