Heaven

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

THERE is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal reign;

Infinite day excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides,

And never-withering flowers;

Death, like a narrow sea, divides

This heavenly land from ours.

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood

Stand dressed in living green;

So to the Jews old Canaan stood,

While Jordan rolled between.

But timorous mortals start and shrink

To cross this narrow sea,

And linger shivering on the brink,

And fear to launch away.

Oh! could we make our doubts remove,

Those gloomy doubts that rise,

And see the Canaan that we love

With unbeclouded eyes—

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.