While the Bridegroom seems to stay

Verse 1
While the Bridegroom seems to stay,
By sinful sleep opprest
Sinners quite forget the day,
And saints in safety rest:
Sinners in their sins lie down,
In worldly quietness and ease:
Saints injoy the peace unknown,
The true substantial peace.

Verse 2
God the world in mercy spares
When ripe for punishment,
Still the dreadful day defers,
That sinners may repent:
Good and bad their eyelids close,
Before they hear the trumpets call,
All their breathless limbs repose,
And death o’rewhelms them all.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘While the Bridegroom tarried, they all slumbred and slept.’—[Matt. 25,] v. 5.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Matthew.” 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 1977/577, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 43.

Publishing: Public Domain