Hymns

There is a land of pure delight

by Isaac Watts·1707·Meter 8.6.8.6 (CM)

Based on Heb 11:16

1

There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign,
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.

2

There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers:
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heav'nly land from ours.

3

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green:
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.

4

But timorous mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea,'
And linger shiv'ring on the brink,
And fear to launch away.

5

O! could we make our doubts remove,
Those gloomy doubts that rise,
And see the Canaan that we love
With unbeclouded eyes!

6

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.