That clime is not like this dull clime of ours;

All, all is brightness there;

A sweeter influence breathes around its flowers,

And a benigner air.

No calm below is like that calm above,

No region here is like that realm of love;

Earth’s softest spring ne’er shed so soft a light,

Earth’s brightest summer never shone so bright.

2 That sky is not like this sad sky of ours,

Tinged with earth’s change and care;

No shadow dims it, and no rain-cloud lowers;

No broken sunshine there:

One everlasting stretch of azure pours

Its stainless splendor o’er those sinless shores:

For there Jehovah shines with heavenly ray,

And Jesus reigns, dispensing endless day.

3 The dwellers there are not like those of earth,

No mortal stain they bear;

And yet they seem of kindred blood and birth;

Whence and how came they there?

Earth was their native soil; from sin and shame,

Through tribulation, they to glory came;

Bond-slaves delivered from sin’s crushing load,

Brands plucked from burning by the hand of God.

4 Yon robes of theirs are not like those below;

No angel’s half so bright:

Whence came that beauty, whence that living glow,

And whence that radiant white?

Washed in the blood of the atoning Lamb,

Fair as the light these robes of theirs became;

And now, all tears wiped off from every eye,

They wander where the freshest pastures lie.