Teach Me to Measure All My Days
As we enter in to the holy season of Lent, this hymn by Isaac Watts, based on Psalm 39, is a great guide for our meditation on our mortality and the hope we have in God. It has been sung to various tunes historically, but one of the most common is St. Columba, the familiar tune we know from “The King of Love My Shepherd Is.”
Teach me the measure of my days, Thou Maker of my frame! I would survey life's narrow space, And learn how frail I am.
A span is all that we can boast: A fleeting hour of time; Man is but vanity and dust, In all His flower and prime.
Vain race of mortals, see them move Like shadows o'er the plain: They rage and strive, desire and love, But all the noise is vain.
Some walk in honor's gaudy show; Some dig for golden ore; They toil for whom they do not know, And straight are seen no more.
What should I wish or wait for then, From creatures, earth, and dust? They make our expectations vain, And disappoint our trust.
Now I resign my earthly hope, My fond desires recall; I give my mortal interest up, And make my God my all.