How few and evil are thy days,
Man, of a woman born!
Trouble and peril haunt thy ways:
Forth like a flower at morn,
The tender infant springs to light,
Youth blossoms with the breeze,
Age, withering age, is cropt ere night;
Man like a shadow flees.
And dost Thou look on such a one?
Will God to judgment call
A worm, for what a worm hath done
Against the Lord of all?
As fail the waters from the deep,
As summer brooks run dry,
Man lieth down in dreamless sleep;
Our life is vanity.
Man lieth down, no more to wake,
Till yonder arching sphere
Shall with a roll of thunder break,
And nature disappear.
O hide me till Thy wrath be past,
Thou who canst kill or save;
Hide me, where hope may anchor fast
In my Redeemer's grave.
—James Montgomery.