Our joy is a created good;
How soon it fades away!
Fades, at the morning hour bestowed,
Before the noon of day.

Joy, by its violent excess,
To certain ruin tends,
And all our rapturous happiness
In hasty sorrow ends.

In vain doth earthly bliss afford
A momentary shade;
It rises like the prophet’s gourd,
And withers o’er my head.

But of my Savior’s love possessed,
No more for earth I pine;
Secure of everlasting rest
Beneath the heavenly vine.