Songs 62

¹Lo! in the last of days behold

a faithless race arise;

Their lawless lust their only rule;

and thus the scoffer cries;

²Where is the promise, deem’d so true,

that spoke the Saviour near?

E’er since our fathers slept in dust,

no change has reach’d our ear.

³Years roll’d on years successive glide,

since first the world began,

And on the tide of time still floats,

secure, the bark of man.

⁴Thus speaks the scoffer; but his words

conceal the truth he knows,

That from the waters’ dark abyss

the earth at first arose.

⁵But when the sons of men began

with one consent to stray,

At Heav’n’s command a deluge swept

the godless race away.

⁶A diff’rent fate is now prepar’d

for Nature’s trembling frame;

Soon shall her orbs be all enwrapt

in one devouring flame.

⁷Reserv’d are sinners for the hour

when to the gulf below,

Arm’d with the hand of sov’reign pow’r,

the Judge consigns his foe.

⁸Though now, ye just! the time appears

protracted, dark, unknown,

An hour, a day, a thousand years,

to heav’n’s great Lord are one.

⁹Still all may share his sov’reign grace,

in ev’ry change secure;

The meek, the suppliant contrite race,

shall find his mercy sure.

¹⁰The contrite race he counts his friends,

forbids the suppliant’s fall;

Condemns reluctant, but extends

the hope of grace to all.

¹¹Yet as the night‐wrapp’d thief who lurks

to seize th’ expected prize,

Thus steals the hour when Christ shall come,

and thunder rend the skies.

¹²Then at the loud, the solemn peal,

the heav’ns shall burst away;

The elements shall melt in flame,

at Nature’s final day.

¹³Since all this frame of things must end,

as Heav’n has so decreed,

How wise our inmost thoughts to guard,

and watch o’er ev’ry deed;

¹⁴Expecting calm th’ appointed hour,

when, Nature’s conflict o’er,

A new and better world shall rise,

where sin is known no more.