Singing songs of expectation, March-ing to the promised land.
The kind, the brave, the true, the sweet, Who walk with us no more.
The sum - mer morn I've sighed for, The fair sweet morn a wakes;
George W. Martin, 1862; har. by Arthur Sullivan, 1874
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.
2 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.
3 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,
Remembered or forgot,
The Lord, is never far from me,
Though I perceive Him not.
4 "For ever with the Lord!"
Father, if 'tis Thy will,
The promise of that faithful word,
E'en here to me fulfil.
Be Thou at my right hand,
Then can I never fail;
Uphold Thou me and I shall stand,
Fight and I must prevail.
5 So when my latest breath
Shall rend the veil in twain,
By death I shall escape from death,
And life eternal gain.
Knowing as I am known,
How shall I love that word,
And oft repeat before the throne,
"For ever with the Lord!"
James Montgomery, 1835
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