The first of saints, the Bridegroom’s friend

Verse 1
The first of saints, the Bridegroom’s friend
Doth thus his course of sufferings end,
The Baptist by oppression dies,
An headless trunk the prophet lies,
Till carried from the dungeon’s gloom
In silence to his darker tomb.

Verse 2
And can we doubt a future day
Which shall the patient saints repay?
The day of man will soon be past,
The Judge of all descend at last,
And souls beneath the altar rise
To brightest thrones above the skies.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘When his disciples heard of it, they came, and took up his corps, and laid it in a tomb.’—[Mark 6,] v. 29.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Mark.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/574, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 10 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 498.
Publishing: Public Domain