Jerusalem, du hochgebaute Stadt.
Jerusalem, thou city built on high,
Would God I were in thee!
My eager spirit hath so yearned to fly
And bides no more with me.
O’er hill and valley mounting
High, high o’er fields and wastes,
O’er all, all worthless counting,
Afar from earth it hastes.
O lovely day, O hour more lovely still,
When wilt thou be revealed,
When blissfully, my voice with joy athrill,
My soul to God I yield,
His pledge ordained, unfailing
In His all-faithful hand,
That haven waits my hailing
In yonder Fatherland?
’Twill mount in e’en the twinkling of an eye
Beyond the firmament,
So wondrously, so gently laying by
Its outworn earthly tent;
Midst chariots ascending
While bright angelic bands,
Around it safe attending,
Will bear it in their hands.
All hail to thee, O glorious city, now!
Lift up thy gates of grace
How long the time I yearned for thee, and how,
Before I reached this place
From yonder life of grieving,
Of vanity and strife,
From God at length receiving
The heritage of life.
What folk is this now drawing near to me,
This throng of worthies blest?
These, one time of th’elect on earth, I see;
The noblest crown and best
Which Christ, with grace compelling,
Sent me in other years
When still far distant dwelling
In mine own land of tears.
Lo, patriarchs renowned and prophets great
And gathered saintly folk,
Who while on earth endured the tyrant’s hate
And wore the Savior’s yoke!
But soaring now in freedom,
With honor clothed upon,
Midst radiant light I see them,
And shining like the sun.
Then when at length I enter in a thrill
That Paradise of God,
My every sense with rapturous joy will fill,
My mouth with praise and laud.
Hosannas there ascending
Make holy minstrelsy,
With Alleluiahs blending
For all eternity.
With instruments and with a joyful noise
Are choirs unnumbered singing,
Till by the sound and shoutings set apoise
The courts of joy are ringing.
With ten ten-thousand voices
And tens of thousands more,
The heavenly host rejoices
As ever from of yore.
Johann Matthaeus Meyfart, 1626.
Tr. A. Ramsey, 1916.