Common Service Book of the Lutheran Church ‎#518

518. There is a land of pure delight

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 heavenly 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, shivering, on the brink,
And fear to launch away.

5 O could we make our doubts remove,
Those gloomy thoughts 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.

Amen.

Text Information

• First Line: There is a land of pure delight
• Author: Isaac Watts (1707)
• Language: English
• Publication Date: 1917
• Topic: The Life Everlasting: Heaven

Tune Information

• Name: SAWLEY
• Composer: James Walch (1860)
• Meter: C. M.
• Key: B♭ Major