How Vain Is All Beneath the Skies!

1How vain is all beneath the skies!
How transient every earthly bliss!
How slender all the fondest ties That bind us to a world like this!

2The evening cloud, the morning dew,
The withering grass, the fading flower,
Of earthly hopes are emblems true— The glory of a passing hour.

3But though earth's fairest blossoms die,
And all beneath the skies is vain,
There is a land whose confines lie Beyond the reach of care and pain.

4Then let the hope of joys to come Dispel our cares, and chase our fears;
If God be ours, we're traveling home,
Though passing through a vale of tears.