Remember your Maker while you are young, before the days of trouble come and the years when you will say,
Ecclesiastes 12:1I have no joy in them.
Words: Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book 1, 1707, number 91. Advice to youth.
Music: Exhortation Eliakim Doolittle, 1800, arranged 1880 (🔊 pdf nwc) (repeats last two lines of each verse).
Alternate Tunes:
Now in the heat of youthful blood
Remember your creator God:
Behold, the months come hastening on,
When you shall say, My joys are gone!
Behold the agèd sinner goes,
Laden with guilt and heavy woes,
Down to the regions of the dead,
With endless curses on his head.
The dust returns to dust again;
The soul, in agonies of pain,
Ascends to God, not there to dwell,
But hears her doom, and sinks to hell.
Eternal King! I fear Thy name;
Teach me to know how frail I am;
And when my soul must hence remove,
Give me a mansion in Thy love.