STUDY / LIVING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE / HYMNS
How short and hasty is our life! Frailty and Folly
Isaac Watts printed it in 1707 in Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book II, no. 32.
WRITTEN BY
Isaac Watts 1674–1748
PRINTED
1707 Hymns and Spiritual Songs · no. 32
METRE
Common Metre 8.6.8.6 · 5 stanzas
WRITTEN ON
A subject no verse printed above it
The hymn, and the Scripture in it
All 5 stanzas as Watts printed them, with the verses their lines echo beside them. Point at a line to join it to its verse; click to read the passage.
SHARED WORDSthe verse shares the line's wording ECHOproposed by an AI model, confirmed by a separate check Not the author's own notes
AMONG THE SCRIPTURES
The stanzas at the centre; around them, every book its heading and its echoes come from, Old Testament on the left and New on the right. Choose a stanza or a book.
a line echoes this verse its heading or an echo comes from here
STANZA I
How short and hasty is our life
How short and hasty is our life!
How vast our souls' affairs!
Yet senseless mortals vainly strive
To lavish out their years.
No line of this stanza quotes a verse closely; it is the hymn's own confession.
Its place in the book
Book II of the hymn book, “Composed on divine subjects”, holds these hymns in this order: 181 hymns. This is number 32. Point at a tick to see the hymn; click it to open that hymn.
NO. 32 · ISAAC WATTS · THIS HYMN How short and hasty is our life!
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