This text comes from A First Series of Hymns and Songs, a historical songbook transcribed on Wikisource and reproduced from the pinned revision linked below.
The sun had risen, the air was sweet,
And brightly shone the morning dew,
And cheerful sounds and busy feet
Pass'd the lone meadows through;
While rolling like a flowery sea,
In waves of gay and spiry bloom,
The hay-fields rippled merrily,
In beauty and perfume.
I saw the early mowers pass
At morn along that pleasant dell,
And rank on rank the shining grass
Around them quickly fell.
I look'd, and far and wide at noon
The morning's fallen flowers were spread;
And all, as rose the evening moon,
Beneath the scythe were dead.
All flesh is grass, the Scriptures say,
And so through life's brief span we find;
Cut down as in a summer day
Are all of human kind.
Some, while the morning still is fair,
Will fall in youth's sweet op'ning prime;
The heat of mid-day some will bear,
But all lie low in time.
O mournful thought! ah, how to me
It breathes a solemn warning tale!
I soon a broken stem shall be,
Like those that strew the vale.
At early dawn or closing light
The silent hand of death may fall:
Oh, may I learn this lesson right,
So full of truth for all!