Sun of righteousness, arise !
Warm our hearts, and bless our eyes *
Let our pray r thy bowels move,
Make this year a time of love.
5.
Death and War. 1778.
1 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.
2 Sad experience may relate
What a year the last has been :
Crops of sorrow have been great
From the fruitful seeds of sin :
Oli .1 what numbers, gay and blithe,
Fell by Death s unsparing scythe,
While they thought the world their own,
Suddenly toe mow d them down !
3 See how War, with dreadful stride,
Marches at the Lord s command,
Spreading desolation wide
Through a once much-favour d 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.
4 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
