1. When languor and disease invade
This trembling house of clay,
'Tis sweet to look beyond the cage,
And long to fly away.

2. Sweet to look inward and attend
The whispers of His love;
Sweet to look upward to the place,
Where Jesus pleads above;

3. Sweet to look back, and see my name
In life's fair book set down;
Sweet to look forward, and behold
Eternal joys my own;

4. Sweet to reflect how grace divine
My sins on Jesus laid;
Sweet to remember that His blood
My debt of suffering paid.

5. Sweet to rejoice in lively hope
That when my change shall come,
Angels will hover round my bed,
and waft my spirit home.

6. Sweet in His righteousness to standm
Which saves from second death;
Sweet to experience day by day
His Spirit's quickening breath;

7. Sweet in faithfulness to rest,

Whose love can never end;
Sweet on his covenant of grace
For all things to depend;

8. Sweet in the confidence of faith
To trust His firm decrees;
Sweet to lie passive in His hands,
And know no will but this.

9. If such is the sweetness of the streams,
What must the fountains be?
Where saints and angels draw their bliss
Immediately from thee!

10. Then shall my disimprisoned soul
Behold Him and adore;
Be with His likeness satisfied,
And grieve and sin no more.

11. If such the views which grace unfolds,
Weak as it is below,
What raptures must the Church above
In Jesus' presence know!"