Oh, Lovely Appearance of Death 

von Phillip Sollmann//Charles Wesley’s 1780 poem Funeral Hymn For A Believer
Oh, lovely appearance of death
No sight upon earth is so fair
Not all the gay pageants that breathe
Can with a dead body compare
In solemn delight I survey
A corpse, when the spirit is fled
In love with the beautiful clay
And longing to lie in its stead
How blest is our brother, bereft
Of all that could burden his mind
How easy the soul, that has left
This wearisome body behind
Of evil incapable, thou
Whose relics with envy I see
No longer in misery now
No longer a sinner like me
This earth is afflicted no more
With sickness, or shaken with pain
The war in the members is o'er
And never shall vex him again
No anger henceforward, or shame
Shall redden his innocent clay
Extinct is the animal flame
And passion is vanished away
To mourn and to suffer is mine
While bound in a prison I breathe
And still for deliverance pine
And press to the issues of death
What now with my tears I bedew
Oh I might this moment become
My spirit created anew
My flesh be consigned to the tomb