Slope of Sleep

"Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:  so shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, and thy want as an armed man" (Proverbs 6:10,11).  "Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship… fast asleep.  So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper?  Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not" (Jonah 1:5,6).  "Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the Master of the house cometh… lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping" (Mark 13:35,36). 

A little sleep, a little slumber

Accumulating every day,

Consume our days, so few in number,

With wasted time, to our dismay. 

As souls are drowning in the waves,   

Are we, like Jonah, fast asleep? 

Should not we tell them Jesus saves

Before they perish in the deep? 

How can we be indifferent now

When God has called us to awake? 

Should not these words: "What meanest thou, 
O sleeper?" purge this great mistake? 

O Lord, You are the only Hope

Of souls that You are cherishing. 

So lift us from the careless slope

Of sleep while souls are perishing.