There shall come a night of such wild affright,
As none beside shall know:
When the heaven shall shake, and the wide earth quake
In its last and deepest woe!
What horrors shall roll o’er the Godless soul,
Waked from its death-like sleep;
Of all hope bereft, and to Judgment left,
Forever to wail and weep!
Ο worldling, give ear, while the saints are near!
Soon must the tie be riven,
And men, side by side, God’s hand shall divide,
As far as hell’s depths from heaven.
Some husband, whose head was laid on his bed,
Throbbing with mad excess,
Awakes from that dream, by the lightning’s gleam,
Alone in his last distress:
For the patient wife, who through each day’s life
Watched and wept for his soul,
Is taken away, and no more shall pray —
For the judgment thunders roll!
And that thoughtless fair, who breathed no prayer,
Oft as her husband knelt,
Shall find he is fled, and start from her bed
To feel as never she felt!
The children of day are summoned away:
Left are the children of night —
Sealed is their doom, for there’s no more room:
Filled are the mansions of light!
What an awful cry will rend the sky,
“Open to us, Ο Lord!”
Ο ye sinners, yet, ere the door be shut,
Let that cry in faith be heard.
Now poised on the wing, they but stop to sing
O’er the last repenting soul;
In this little while, though never so vile,
Christ Jesus can make you whole.
And then, in that night of such wild affright
As none beside shall know,
Ye shall calmly rest on HIS tender breast,
Far off from the world’s last woe.
M. B