Songs 50

¹When the last trumpet’s awful voice

this rending earth shall shake,

When op’ning graves shall yield their charge,

and dust to life awake;

²Those bodies that corrupted fell

shall incorrupted rise,

And mortal forms shall spring to life

immortal in the skies.

³Behold what heav’nly prophets sung

is now at last fulfill’d,

That Death should yield his ancient reign,

and, vanquish’d, quit the field.

⁴Let Faith exalt her joyful voice,

and thus begin to sing;

O Grave! where is thy triumph now?

and where, O Death! thy sting?

⁵Thy sting was sin, and conscious guilt,

’twas this that arm’d thy dart;

The law gave sin its strength and force

to pierce the sinner’s heart:

⁶But God, whose name be ever bless’d!

disarms that foe we dread,

And makes us conqu’rors when we die,

through Christ our living head.

⁷Then stedfast let us still remain,

though dangers rise around,

And in the work prescrib’d by God

yet more and more abound;

⁸Assur’d that though we labour now,

we labour not in vain,

But, through the grace of heav’n’s great Lord,

th’ eternal crown shall gain.