"Weep for yourselves, and for your children."
1 We mourn for those who toil,
The slave who ploughs the main,
Or him who hopeless tills the soil
Beneath the stripe and chain:
For those who, in the race,
O'erwearied and unblest,
A host of restless phantoms chase;--
Why mourn for those who rest?
2 We mourn for those who sin?
Bound in the tempter's snare,
Whom syren pleasure beckons in
To prisons of despair;
Whose hearts, by passions torn,
Are wrecked on folly's shore;--
But why in sorrow should we mourn
For those who sin no more?
3 We mourn for those who weep;
Whom stern afflictions bend
With anguish o'er the lowly sleep
Of lover or of friend:
But they to whom the sway
Of pain and grief is o'er,
Whose tears our God hath wiped away,
O mourn for them no more!