1 When blooming youth is snatch'd away
By death's resistless hand,
Our hearts the mournful tribute pay
Which pity must demand.
2 While pity prompts the rising sigh,
O may this truth, impress'd
With awful power,--"I too must die:"
Sink deep in every breast.
3 Let this vain world engage no more;
Behold the gaping tomb!
It bids us seize the present hour,
To-morrow death may come.
4 The voice of this alarming scene,
May every heart obey;
Nor be the heavenly warning vain,
Which calls to watch and pray.
5 Oh, let us fly--to Jesus fly,
Whose powerful arm can save;
Then shall our hopes ascend on high,
And triumph o'er the grave.
6 Great God! thy sovereign grace impart,
With cleansing, healing power;
This only can prepare the heart
For death's surprising hour.
Source: A Collection of Hymns and Prayers, for Public and Private Worship #380
First Line: | When blooming youth is snatched away |
Title: | At the Funeral of a Young Person |
Author: | Anne Steele |
Meter: | 8.6.8.6 |
Language: | English |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
When blooming youth is snatched away. Anne Steele. [Death and Burial of a Young Person.] First published in her Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional, &c, 1760, vol. i. p. 106, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed "At the Funeral of a Young Person." Also given in the 1780 edition of the Poems, and in D. Sedgwick's reprint of her Hymns, &c., 1863, p. 66. The form of the text usually found in American hymn-books is "When those we love are snatched away." This was given in the Prayer Book Collection, 1826, in 5 stanzas, and is found in later hymnals. Another arrangement in 3 stanzas is in use in Great Britain. It appeared in Bickersteth's Christian Psalmody, 1833, as "When youth or age is snatched away." The text in Common Praise, 1879, is in 5 stanzas, the last of the original being omitted, and the rest somewhat altered.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)