James Montgomery (1771–1854)

‘FOREVER with the Lord!’

Amen, so let it be;

Life from the dead is in that word,

’Tis immortality.

Here in the body pent,

Absent from him I roam,

Yet nightly pitch my moving tent

A day’s march nearer home.

My Father’s house on high,

Home of my soul, how near

At times, to faith’s foreseeing eye,

Thy golden gates appear!

Ah! then my spirit faints

To reach the land I love,

The bright inheritance of saints,

Jerusalem above.

Yet clouds will intervene,

And all my prospect flies;

Like Noah’s dove, I flit between

Rough seas and stormy skies.

Anon the clouds dispart,

The winds and waters cease,

While sweetly o’er my gladden’d heart

Expands the bow of peace.

Beneath its glowing arch,

Along the hallow’d ground,

I see cherubic armies march,

A camp of fire around.

I hear at morn and even,

At noon and midnight hour,

The choral harmonies of heaven

Earth’s Babel-tongues o’erpower.

Then, then I feel that he,

Remember’d or forgot,

The Lord, is never far from me,

Though I perceive him not.