Autumn

Hail, ye sighing sons of sorrow
View with me the autumnal gloom.
See all nature fading, dying silent
all things seem to mourn
Life from vegetation flying
Brings to mind the mould'ring urn.

Learn from thence your fate tomorrow,
Dead perhaps laid in the tomb.
See all nature fading, dying silent,
all things seem to mourn
Life from vegetation flying
Brings to mind the mould'ring urn

What to me are autumn’s treasures,
Since I know no earthly joy,

Long I’ve lost all earthly pleasures,
Time must youth and health destroy.

Pleasures once I fondly courted,
Shared each bliss that youth bestows,

But to see where then I sported,
Now embitters all my woes.

Age and sorrow since have blasted
Every youthful pleasing dream;

Quivering age, with youth contrasted,
Oh, how short her glories seem!

As the annual frosts are cropping
Leaves and tendrils from the trees,

So my friends are yearly dropping
Through old age and dire disease.

Childhood friends, how oft I’ve sought them
Just to cheer my drooping mind,

But they’ve gone like leaves in autumn,
Driven before the dreary wind.

When a few more years I’ve wasted,
When a few more Springs are o’er

When a few more griefs I’ve tasted,
I shall live to die no more.

Fast my sun of life’s declining,
I must sleep in death’s dark night;

But my hope, pure and refining
Rests in future life and light.

Cease this trembling, fearing, sighing,
Christ will burst the silent tomb,

Then the saints shall, upward flying,
Rise into immortal bloom.