{
 "id": "john-newton/earthly-prospects-deceitful",
 "title": "Earthly Prospects Deceitful",
 "ordinal": "6",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Newton",
 "poet_slug": "john-newton",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Olney Hymns",
 "book_slug": "olney-hymns",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 147,
 "container": "New Year’s Hymns",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1779,
  "venue": "Olney Hymns (1779)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_olney-hymns-in-three-bo_newton-john_1779",
   "https://cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/bulletin/computerised-index-to-the-olney-hymns/",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-newton_william-cowper_olney-hymns",
  "file": "book-2.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Olney_Hymns_%281840%29",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-15"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 5,
  "longest_line_chars": 38,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    2
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    2,
    3
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    3,
    4
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "V",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    4,
    5
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Oft in vain the voice of truth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Solemnly and loudly warns;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thoughtless, inexperienced youth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though it hears, the warning scorns:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Youth in fancy’s glass surveys",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Life prolong’d to distant years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the vast imagined space",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fill’d with sweets and joys appears.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Awful disappointment soon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Overclouds the prospect gay;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some their sun goes down at noon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Torn by death’s strong hand away:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where are then their pleasing schemes?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the joys they hoped to find?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gone for ever, like their dreams,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaving not a trace behind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Others, who are spared awhile,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Live to weep o’er fancy’s cheat;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Find distress and pain and toil,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bitter things instead of sweet:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sin has spread a curse around,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poison’d all things here below;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On this base polluted ground",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Peace and joy can never grow",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Grace alone can cure our ills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sweeten life with all its cares,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Regulate our stubborn wills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save us from surrounding snares:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though you oft have heard in vain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Former years in folly spent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grace invites you yet again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once more calls you to repent.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Call’d again, at length beware,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hear the Saviour’s voice and live;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lest he in his wrath should swear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He no more will warning give;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pray that you may hear and feel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ere the day of grace be past;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lest your hearts grow hard as steel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or this year should prove your last.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}