What profit hath th’ ambitious man,
Of earthly goods possest?
Something he wants, but cannot gain,
Which cankers all the rest:
His canker’d all as nothing weighs;
And if the world he won,
He soon must go to his own place,
Eternally undone.
What profit hath the’ ambitious man
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled “Yet all this availeth me nothing.”—[Esther] v. 13. Introduced in Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 1 (Bristol: Farley, 1762). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 9 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 229.
Publishing: Public Domain