William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.
At Home in HeavenJames Montgomery (17711854)
‘F
Amen, so let it be;
Life from the dead is in that word,
’Tis immortality.
Absent from him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day’s march nearer home.
Home of my soul, how near
At times, to faith’s foreseeing eye,
Thy golden gates appear!
To reach the land I love,
The bright inheritance of saints,
Jerusalem above.
And all my prospect flies;
Like Noah’s dove, I flit between
Rough seas and stormy skies.
The winds and waters cease,
While sweetly o’er my gladden’d heart
Expands the bow of peace.
Along the hallow’d ground,
I see cherubic armies march,
A camp of fire around.
At noon and midnight hour,
The choral harmonies of heaven
Earth’s Babel-tongues o’erpower.
Remember’d or forgot,
The Lord, is never far from me,
Though I perceive him not.