Our days, alas! our mortal days

General information

This is an hymn by Isaac Watts, 1709, his Hymn 39 of Book 2, entitled The shortness and misery of life.

Settings by composers (automated)

• Jacob French — Pawtuxet  English SATB
• Abraham Wood — Wilton  English SATB

 

Text and translations

English text

Our days, alas! our mortal days
Are short and wretched too;
"Evil and few," the patriarch says,
And well the patriarch knew.

'Tis but at best a narrow bound
That heaven allows to men,
And pains and sins run through the round
Of threescore years and ten.

Well, if ye must be sad and few,
Run on, my days, in haste;
Moments of sin and months of woe,
Ye cannot fly too fast.

Let heavenly love prepare my soul,
And call her to the skies,
Where years of long salvation roll,
And glory never dies.