The Death Angel

Written by Sarah New, my great-great grandmother (i.e., my grandmother's grandmother), sometime between 1907 and 1913.


Did you ever have the death angel to knock at the door of your home
And take away some precious loved one, for the angel of death will come
When we started in life together, we were happy because we knew
That God, in his wonderful wisdom, would carry us safely through.

For we trusted his saving power, long, long before we were wed
And we’ll trust him for grace and mercy, till through death’s dark waves we are led
By and by, he gave us four children, to brighten our home here below
They were sweet to us, oh! how we loved them, only fathers and mothers can know.

But the death angel came with his sickle, and took our sweet baby of three
So we bow in humble submission, for God knoweth better than we
And we know that the blessed God giveth, and he also taketh away
And we know when our troubles have vanished, we’ll see her again some sweet day.

So we toil on through trouble and trail, with our humble home breft
For we know that God is righteous, and we have three children left
But alas! again he cometh, with his sickle of death “so keen”
And taketh away another, in the bloom of youth, aged eighteen.

We laid her away in the churchyard, beside “the little one dear”
Close by the old house where we worshipped, and oh! how we miss her here—
Yes, the place where we’ve all met so often, where she so often has sung
God’s praise, as a warning to sinners, “to flee! from the wrath to come.”

My heart almost breaks with these trials, but God’s promise “never” will break
And he said he would be in six troubles, and the seventh he would not forsake
So we’re praying to God our dear father, that we may all be reconciled
For we know not who next will be taken, whether father or mother or child.

But we know that at last “when he cometh,” and the trials of life are all o’er
We will meet with our loved ones in glory, where sickness and death come no more
Where angels are praising “in heaven,” where all the redeemed will sing—
O! grave where is thy victory – O death! where – where is thy sting!