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Part I
“FOR ever with the Lord!” | |
| —Amen; so let it be; | |
| Life from the dead is in that word, | |
| ’Tis immortality. | |
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| Here in the body pent, | 5 |
| Absent from Him I roam; | |
| Yet nightly pitch my moving tent | |
| A day’s march nearer home. | |
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| My Father’s house on high, | |
| Home of my soul, how near, | 10 |
| At times, to faith’s foreseeing eye, | |
| Thy golden gates appear! | |
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| Ah! then my spirit faints | |
| To reach the land I love, | |
| The bright inheritance of saints, | 15 |
| Jerusalem above. | |
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| Yet clouds will intervene, | |
| And all my prospect flies; | |
| Like Noah’s dove, I flit between | |
| Rough seas and stormy skies. | 20 |
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| Anon the clouds dispart, | |
| The winds and waters cease, | |
| While sweetly o’er my gladden’d heart | |
| Expands the bow of peace. | |
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| Beneath its glowing arch, | 25 |
| Along the hallow’d ground, | |
| I see cherubic armies march, | |
| A camp of fire around. | |
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| I hear at morn and even, | |
| At noon and midnight hour, | 30 |
| The choral harmonies of heaven | |
| Earth’s Babel-tongues o’erpower. | |
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| Then, then I feel that He, | |
| (Remember’d or forgot,) | |
| The Lord, is never far from me, | 35 |
| Though I perceive Him not. | |
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Part II
IN darkness as in light | |
| Hidden alike from view, | |
| I sleep, I wake within His sight | |
| Who looks all nature through. | 40 |
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| From the dim hour of birth, | |
| Through every changing state | |
| Of mortal pilgrimage on earth, | |
| Till its appointed date; | |
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| All that I am, have been, | 45 |
| All that I yet may be, | |
| He sees at once, as He hath seen | |
| And shall for ever see. | |
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| How can I meet His eyes? | |
| Mine on the cross I cast, | 50 |
| And own my life a Saviour’s prize, | |
| Mercy from first to last. | |
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| “For ever with the Lord!” | |
| —Father, if ’tis Thy will, | |
| The promise of that faithful word, | 55 |
| Even here to me fulfil. | |
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| Be Thou at my right hand, | |
| Then can I never fail; | |
| Uphold Thou me, and I shall stand, | |
| Fight, and I must prevail. | 60 |
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| So when my latest breath | |
| Shall rend the veil in twain, | |
| By death I shall escape from death, | |
| And life eternal gain. | |
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| Knowing as I am known, | 65 |
| How shall I love that word, | |
| And oft repeat before the throne, | |
| “For ever with the Lord!” | |
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| Then, though the soul enjoy | |
| Communion high and sweet, | 70 |
| While worms this body must destroy, | |
| Both shall in glory meet. | |
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| The trump of final doom | |
| Will speak the self-same word, | |
| And Heaven’s voice thunder through the tomb, | 75 |
| “For ever with the Lord!” | |
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| The tomb shall echo deep | |
| That death-awakening sound; | |
| The saints shall hear it in their sleep | |
| And answer from the ground. | 80 |
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| Then, upward as they fly, | |
| That resurrection-word | |
| Shall be their shout of victory, | |
| “For ever with the Lord!” | |
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| The resurrection-word, | 85 |
| That shout of victory, | |
| Once more,—“For ever with the Lord!” | |
| Amen; so let it be. | |
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