Thou hast entered the land without shadows,
Thou who, 'neath the shadow, so long
Hast sat with thy white hands close-folded,
And lips that could utter no song;
Through a rift in the cloud, for an instant,
Thine eyes caught a glimpse of that shore,
And Earth with its gloom was forgotten,
And Heaven is thine own evermore!
We see not the glorious vision,
Nor the welcoming melodies hear,
That, from bowers of beauty Elysian,
Float tenderly sweet to thine ear;
Round us, lie Earth's desolate midnight,
Her winter-plains bare and untrod,—
Round thee, is the glad, morning sunlight
That beams from the City of God!
Our eyes have grown heavy with weeping,—
Thine, "the King in his beauty" behold
And thou leanest thy head on His bosom,
Like him, the beloved, of old;
The days of thy weeping are ended,
Thy sorrow and suffering done,
And angels thy flight have attended
To the side of the Crucified One.
On thy hearth-stone the ashes are fireless,
In thy dark home the lights never burn,
In thy garden the sweet flowers have perished,
To thy bower no song-birds return!
Yet a mansion of bliss glory-lighted,
Where anguish and death are unknown,
Where beauty and bloom are unblighted,
Henceforth is forever thine own!
Oh! joy for thee, glorified spirit!
With Jesus forever to be,
And with sinless and sainted companions
The bliss of His Paradise see!
Joy, joy!—for thy warfare is finished,
Thy perilous journeying o'er,
And, above the deep gloom of Earth's shadows,
Thou art dwelling in Light evermore!