O it is a weary life

O it is a weary life
Full of toils and dangers,
Full of sorrows, full of strife,
We in it but strangers;
O it is a world of woe!
Why should we so love it?
And prefer life's cares below
To life's joys above it?

Yet from care we might be free
As the sunshine o'er us,
And the path of life might be
Ever bright before us,
If we could but look beyond
Life, to that life yonder,
If the hearts, of earth so fond,
Could of heaven grow fonder.

Then 'twould be a life of light,
Nothing then could grieve us,
Nothing then could pain or blight
Trouble or deceive us;
Then — what care or grief befall
Come but as God pleases,
We would live above them all,
We would live in Jesus.

No! 'tis not a weary life
Tho' it hath its dangers,
If we wage the Holy strife,
If we live as strangers;
It is not a world of woe
If we do not love it,
But a training heaven below
For the Heav'n above it.