Terror grim the soul oppresses

When the day of death is near;

Sighs the heart, the reins are sundered,

Quakes each part with anxious fear;

While the mind the woe detaileth

Of the conflict to appear.

Spectacle all woe inspiring

Who its terror can pourtray?

See, the course of life is ended,

And the sickening flesh gives way,

For the wrestling soul in triumph

Breaks the bands that bid her stay.

Sense decays, and fails expression;

Dark the world to melting eye;

And the troubled breast in anguish,

Gasping, breathes her burdened sigh;

Grace of form and glow of beauty,

From the withering body die.

Thoughts, and words, and deeds forgotten,

Crowd around in grim array;

And unwilling eyes behold them,

Be they closed or turned away;

In the heart they seem to rankle,

Turn he wheresoe’er he may.

Vain the vow of new obedience—

Time for vowing is no more;

Vain the sorrow of repentance,

For the day of grace is o’er;

Conscience now the tortured sinner

Gnaws with pangs unfelt before.

Draughts of sweet deluding pleasure

Give the bitter dregs at last;

Come, unending pain and anguish,

With the short-lived rapture past;

Then, what once appeared so worthy,

Is aside as worthless cast.

Then, O Christ, Thou King victorious,

Come with succour in my plight;

When the soul is freed from bondage,

In its hour of darkest night;

Come, O Christ, Thy help extending,

Free me from the accuser’s might.

Headlong may the Prince of Darkness

With the hosts infernal fall!

Thou, the Shepherd of Salvation,

Bid me follow at Thy call,

To the land where fulness dwelleth,

And those eyes shall see it all.