| |
| FOR thee, O dear dear Country! | |
| Mine eyes their vigils keep; | |
| For very love, beholding | |
| Thy happy name, they weep: | |
| The mention of thy glory | 5 |
| Is unction to the breast, | |
| And medicine in sickness, | |
| And love, and life, and rest. | |
| |
| O come, O onely Mansion! | |
| O Paradise of Joy! | 10 |
| Where tears are ever banish’d, | |
| And smiles have no alloy; | |
| Beside thy living waters | |
| All plants are, great and small, | |
| The cedar of the forest, | 15 |
| The hyssop of the wall: | |
| With jaspers glow thy bulwarks; | |
| Thy streets with emeralds blaze; | |
| The sardius and the topaz | |
| Unite in thee their rays: | 20 |
| Thine ageless walls are bonded | |
| With amethyst unpriced: | |
| Thy Saints build up its fabric, | |
| And the corner-stone is Christ. | |
| |
| The Cross is all thy splendour, | 25 |
| The Crucified thy praise: | |
| His laud and benediction | |
| Thy ransom’d people raise: | |
| Jesus, the Gem of Beauty, | |
| True God and Man, they sing: | 30 |
| The never-failing Garden, | |
| The ever-golden Ring: | |
| The Door, the Pledge, the Husband, | |
| The Guardian of his Court: | |
| The Day-star of Salvation, | 35 |
| The Porter and the Port. | |
| Thou hast no shore, fair ocean! | |
| Thou hast no time, bright day! | |
| Dear fountain of refreshment | |
| To pilgrims far away! | 40 |
| |
| Upon the Rock of Ages | |
| They raise thy holy tower: | |
| Thine is the victor’s laurel, | |
| And thine the golden dower: | |
| Thou feel’st in mystic rapture, | 45 |
| O Bride that know’st no guile, | |
| The Prince’s sweetest kisses, | |
| The Prince’s loveliest smile: | |
| Unfading lilies, bracelets | |
| Of living pearl thine own: | 50 |
| The Lamb is ever near thee, | |
| The Bridegroom thine alone: | |
| The Crown is He to guerdon, | |
| The Buckler to protect, | |
| And He Himself the Mansion, | 55 |
| And He the Architect. | |
| The only art thou needest, | |
| Thanksgiving for thy lot: | |
| The only joy thou seekest, | |
| The Life where Death is not. | 60 |
| And all thine endless leisure | |
| In sweetest accents sings, | |
| The ill that was thy merit,— | |
| The wealth that is thy King’s! | |
| |
| Jerusalem the golden, | 65 |
| With milk and honey blest, | |
| Beneath thy contemplation | |
| Sink heart and voice oppress’d: | |
| I know not, O I know not, | |
| What social joys are there! | 70 |
| What radiancy of glory, | |
| What light beyond compare! | |
| |
| And when I fain would sing them | |
| My spirit fails and faints, | |
| And vainly would it image | 75 |
| The assembly of the Saints. | |
| |
| They stand, those halls of Syon, | |
| Conjubilant with song, | |
| And bright with many an angel, | |
| And all the martyr throng: | 80 |
| The Prince is ever in them; | |
| The daylight is serene: | |
| The pastures of the Blessèd | |
| Are deck’d in glorious sheen. | |
| |
| There is the Throne of David,— | 85 |
| And there, from care released, | |
| The song of them that triumph, | |
| The shout of them that feast; | |
| And they who, with their Leader | |
| Have conquer’d in the fight, | 90 |
| For ever and for ever | |
| Are clad in robes of white! | |
| |
| O holy, placid harp-notes | |
| Of that eternal hymn! | |
| O sacred, sweet refection, | 95 |
| And peace of Seraphim! | |
| O thirst, for ever ardent, | |
| Yet evermore content! | |
| O true, peculiar vision | |
| Of God cunctipotent! | 100 |
| Ye know the many mansions | |
| For many a glorious name | |
| And divers retributions | |
| That divers merits claim: | |
| For midst the constellations | 105 |
| That deck our earthly sky, | |
| This star than that is brighter,— | |
| And so it is on high. | |
| |
| Jerusalem the glorious! | |
| The glory of the Elect! | 110 |
| O dear and future vision | |
| That eager hearts expect: | |
| Even now by faith I see thee | |
| Even here thy walls discern: | |
| To thee my thoughts are kindled, | 115 |
| And strive and pant and yearn: | |
| Jerusalem the onely, | |
| That look’st from heaven below, | |
| In thee is all my glory; | |
| In me is all my woe! | 120 |
| And though my body may not, | |
| My spirit seeks thee fain, | |
| Till flesh and earth return me | |
| To earth and flesh again. | |
| O none can tell thy bulwarks, | 125 |
| How gloriously they rise: | |
| O none can tell thy capitals | |
| Of beautiful device: | |
| Thy loveliness oppresses | |
| All human thought and heart: | 130 |
| And none, O peace, O Syon, | |
| Can sing thee as thou art. | |
| New mansion of new people, | |
| Whom God’s own love and light | |
| Promote, increase, make holy, | 135 |
| Identify, unite. | |
| Thou City of the Angels! | |
| Thou City of the Lord! | |
| Whose everlasting music | |
| Is the glorious decachord! | 140 |
| And there the band of Prophets | |
| United praise ascribes, | |
| And there the twelvefold chorus | |
| Of Israel’s ransom’d tribes: | |
| The lily-beds of virgins, | 145 |
| The roses’ martyr-glow, | |
| The cohort of the Fathers | |
| Who kept the faith below! | |
| And there the Sole-Begotten | |
| Is Lord in regal state; | 150 |
| He, Judah’s mystic Lion, | |
| He, Lamb Immaculate. | |
| |
| O fields that know no sorrow! | |
| O state that fears no strife! | |
| O princely bow’rs! O land of flow’rs! | 155 |
| O realm and home of Life! | |
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