"Ah, lovely appearance of death" is an eighteenth-century funeral hymn composed by the English Methodist leader and hymnwriter Charles Wesley. It was first published in his Funeral Hymns (First Series) in 1746 as No. v, bearing the title "On the sight of a Corpse."
The hymn was inspired by the death of a young man at Cardiff in August 1744. Wesley recorded the experience in his personal journal, writing that the spirit at its departure had left marks of its happiness on the clay, adding that no sight upon earth in his eyes was half so lovely. This vivid reflection directly shaped the solemn yet triumphant tone of the poetical text.
In 1780, the piece was selected for inclusion in A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (the Wesleyan Hymn-Book). Around 1782, Charles Wesley revised the hymn, reducing its length to five stanzas. Although omitted from the revised edition of the Wesleyan Hymn-Book in 1875, the text was retained in many other hymnal collections throughout Great Britain and America. The original text and manuscript revisions were collected and preserved in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley (1868 to 1872, Volume VI, pages 193 and 212).
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