“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.” Psalm. cxxii. 1.
How do I love thy courts, O Lord!
What glories they unfold:
The joys they do to me afford,
More precious are than gold!
The very gates through which I pass,
Are beautiful to me!
What numbers here beneath the grass,
In silent slumber lie!
While I approach this solemn ground,
My thoughts I will controul;—
The tolling bell, with mournful sound,
Affects my inmost soul!
While musing o’er the silent dead,
What wonders do I see!
The very dust on which I tread,
Once liv’d, and mov’d like me!
Here things mysterious I perceive,
Things which I can’t explain;—
Wak’d by that voice which Heav’n shall give,
This dust shall “rise again!”
Then some to everlasting life,
Exultingly shall rise;
While some to everlasting death,
Shall go with weeping eyes!
Such as we sow, that shall we reap;
The sowing time is now:—
O may I watch, and faithful, keep
My station at the plough!
O what’s this world with all its joys,
But a delusive dream;
The dead, as speaking witnesses,
All testify the same.
They preach in lectures loud and plain,
Though silent, cold, and deep;
They tell me, if the earth remain,
I soon like them shall sleep!