Life is a span, a fleeting hour

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Life is a span, a fleeting hour

Author: Anne Steele
Published in 165 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, Noteworthy Composer
Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	Hymn Miniatures for Communion (Sixty-Sec…

Representative Text

1 Life is a span, a fleeting hour;
How soon the vapour flies!
Man is a tender transient, flow'r,
That e'en in blooming dies.

2 The once-lov'd form, now cold and dead,
Each mournful thought employs;
And nature weeps her comforts fled,
And wither'd all her joys.

3 But wait the interposing gloom,
And lo! stern winter flies;
And, dress'd in beauty's fairest bloom,
The flow'ry tribes arise.

4 Hope looks beyond the bounds of time,
When what we now deplore
Shall rise in full immortal prime
And bloom to fade no more.

5 Then cease, fond nature! cease thy tears;
Religion points on high:
There everlasting spring appears,
And joys that cannot die.

Source: A Collection of Hymns and Prayers, for Public and Private Worship #379

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Author: Anne Steele

Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporar… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Life is a span, a fleeting hour
Author:	Anne Steele
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Tune

WOODLAND (Gould)

CHINA (55531)

MARTYRDOM (Wilson)

MARTYRDOM was originally an eighteenth-century Scottish folk melody used for the ballad "Helen of Kirkconnel." Hugh Wilson (b. Fenwick, Ayrshire, Scotland, c. 1766; d. Duntocher, Scotland, 1824) adapted MARTYRDOM into a hymn tune in duple meter around 1800. A triple-meter version of the tune was fir…

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