Lord, to be with thee in thine own abode,
The place prepared where thou wilt have us dwell,
Brought home unto thy Father and thy God,
Where harpers harping shall thy triumphs tell.
Sons of His love! heirs of his festal joy!
What bliss! how full, how pure beyond alloy!
To gaze around in that effulgent light,
With not a mist from earth to intervene;
Thy majesty, thy beauty, full in sight;
Thy glory flooding all the boundless scene;
Thy love in its perfection, known at last—
‘Twill solve the long enigma of the past.
To read in full the story of the cross—
Known dimly—but with growing wonder now:
To measure, by God’s glory, what it cost,
Beneath His curse, thy holy head to bow.
Thy royal garments (in that hour laid by)
Proving the depths of thy descent—to DIE!
To hear thee leading, in our midst, high praise.
To Him whom thou hast glorified on earth;
Whose will, the rule of all thy pilgrim days.
Made thee a suffering stranger from thy birth.
Proof—thou, the slain One—highest heavens above,
Of sovereign mercy and victorious love.
To know how thou hast made an end of sin;
Swept every hostile element away;
To see eternal righteousness brought in,
And watch the universe thy mind obey.
No longer to perceive and know in part;
But feel with thee—behold thee where thou art.
To worship Him who sitteth on the throne,
Whose Church are we, the purchased by thy blood.
Thine incorruptibility our own.
The dearest purpose of thy heart made good,
And through eternity’s exhaustless days,
Our Lord, our Savior! to sound forth thy praise.