Oh, Lovely Appearance of Death

Oh, lovely appearance of death

No sight upon earth is so fair

Not all the gay pageants that breathe

Can with a dead body compare

In solemn delight I survey

A corpse, when the spirit is fled

In love with the beautiful clay

And longing to lie in its stead

How blest is our brother, bereft

Of all that could burden his mind

How easy the soul, that has left

This wearisome body behind

Of evil incapable, thou

Whose relics with envy I see

No longer in misery now

No longer a sinner like me

This earth is afflicted no more

With sickness, or shaken with pain

The war in the members is o'er

And never shall vex him again

No anger henceforward, or shame

Shall redden his innocent clay

Extinct is the animal flame

And passion is vanished away

To mourn and to suffer is mine

While bound in a prison I breathe

And still for deliverance pine

And press to the issues of death

What now with my tears I bedew

Oh I might this moment become

My spirit created anew

My flesh be consigned to the tomb