Why Do We Mourn for Dying Friends

Lyrics

• Copyright: Public Domain

Lyrics from A Collection of Sacred Hymns for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Europe, 1840

Hymn 168
C.M.
1. Why do we mourn for dying friends,
Or shake at death's alarms?
'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends,
To call them to his arms.

2. Are we not tending upward too,
As fast as time can move?
Nor should we wish the hours more slow
To keep us from our love.

3. Why should we tremble to convey,
Their bodies to the tomb?
There once the flesh of Jesus lay,
And left a long perfume.

4. The graves of all his saints he blest,
And softened every bed:
Where should the dying members rest?
But with their dying Head?

5. Thence he arose, ascended high,
And showed our feet the way:
Up to the Lord our feet shall fly,
At the great rising day.

6. Then let the last loud trumpet sound,
And bid our kindred rise;
Awake, ye nations under ground;
Ye saints, ascend the skies.