Classic Poem

O SAFE at home, where the dark tempter roams not,
How I have envied thy far happier lot!
Already resting where the evil comes not,
The tear, the toil, the woe, the sin forgot.

O safe in port, where the rough billow breaks not,
Where the wild sea-moan saddens thee no more;
Where the remorseless stroke of tempest shakes not; —
When, when shall I too gain that tranquil shore?

O bright, amid the brightness all eternal,
When shall I breathe with thee the purer air? —
Air of a land whose clime is ever vernal,
A land without a serpent or a snare.

Away, above the scenes of guilt and folly,
Beyond this desert's heat and dreariness,
Safe in the city of the ever-holy,
Let me make haste to join thy earlier bliss.

Another battle fought, and oh, not lost —
Tells of the ending of this fight and thrall,
Another ridge of time's lone moorland crossed,
Gives nearer prospect of the jasper wall.

Just gone within the veil, where I shall follow,
Not far before me, hardly out of sight —
I down beneath thee in this cloudy hollow,
And thou far up on yonder sunny height.

Gone to begin a new and happier story,
Thy bitterer tale of earth now told and done;
These outer shadows for that inner glory
Exchanged for ever. — O thrice blessed one!

O freed from fetters of this lonesome prison,
How I shall greet thee in that day of days,
When He who died, yea rather who is risen,
Shall these frail frames from dust and darkness raise.