18 Hymn 9.
C. M.
“There is a land of pure delight.”
There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign: Infinite day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain. | There everlasting spring abides, And never-withr’ing flowers: Death like a narrow sea divides That heavenly land from ours. | Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand dressed in living green: So to the Jews fair Canaan stood, While Jordan roll’d between. | But tim’rous mortals start and shrink To cross that narrow sea; And linger shiv’ring on the brink, And fear to launch away. | O could we make our doubts remove, Those gloomy doubts that rise, And see the Canaan that we love, With unbeclouded eyes! | Could we but climb where Moses stood, And view the landscape o’er, Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood, Should fright us from the shore. | |