Spring up, my soul, with ardent flight

Representative Text

1 Spring up, my soul, with ardent flight,
Nor let this earth delude thy sight
With glitt'ring trifles, gay and vain.
Wisdom divine directs thy view
To objects ever grand and new
And faith displays the shining train.

2 Be dead, my hopes, to all below;
Nor let unbounded torrents flow,
When mourning o'er my wither'd joys.
So this deceitful world is known:
Possess'd, I call it not my own,
Nor glory in its painted toys.

3 The empty pageant rolls along;
The giddy inexperienc'd throng
Pursue it with enchanted eyes:
It passeth in swift march away;
Still more and more its charms decay,
Till the last gaudy colour dies.

4 My God! to thee my soul shall turn;
To thee my noblest passions burn,
And drink in bliss from thee alone.
I fix on that unchanging home,
Where never-fading pleasures bloom,
Fresh-springing round thy radiant throne.

Source: A Collection of Hymns and A Liturgy: for the use of Evangelical Lutheran Churches; to which are added prayers for families and individuals #507

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Author: Philip Doddridge

Philip Doddridge (b. London, England, 1702; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 1751) belonged to the Non-conformist Church (not associated with the Church of England). Its members were frequently the focus of discrimination. Offered an education by a rich patron to prepare him for ordination in the Church of England, Doddridge chose instead to remain in the Non-conformist Church. For twenty years he pastored a poor parish in Northampton, where he opened an academy for training Non-conformist ministers and taught most of the subjects himself. Doddridge suffered from tuberculosis, and when Lady Huntington, one of his patrons, offered to finance a trip to Lisbon for his health, he is reputed to have said, "I can as well go to heaven from Lisbon as from Nort… Go to person page >

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