Hark! How Time’s Wide Sounding Bell

'''Death and war. 1778' by John Newton''


 * Hark! how time’s wide sounding bell
 * Strikes on each attentive ear!
 * Tolling loud the solemn knell
 * Of the late departed year:
 * Years, like mortals, wear away,
 * Have their birth, and dying day;
 * Youthful spring, and wintry age,
 * Then to others quit the stage.


 * Sad experience may relate
 * What a year the last has been!
 * Crops of sorrow have been great,
 * From the fruitful seeds of sin:
 * O! what numbers gay and blithe,
 * Fell by death’s unsparing scythe?
 * While they thought the world their own,
 * Suddenly he mowed them down.


 * See how war, with dreadful stride,
 * Marches at the Lord’s command,
 * Spreading desolation wide,
 * Through a once much-favored land:
 * War, with heart and arms of steel,
 * Preys on thousands at a meal;
 * Daily drinking human gore,
 * Still he thirsts, and calls for more.


 * If the God, Whom we provoke,
 * Hither should His way direct;
 * What a sin-avenging stroke
 * May a land, like this, expect!
 * They who now securely sleep,
 * Quickly then, would wake and weep;
 * And too late would learn to fear,
 * When they saw the danger near.


 * You are safe, who know His love,
 * He will all His truth perform;
 * To your souls a refuge prove
 * From the rage of every storm:
 * But we tremble for the youth;
 * Teach them, Lord, Thy saving truth;
 * Join them to Thy faithful few,
 * Be to them a Refuge too.