There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Eternal day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides,
And never-fading flowers;
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heavenly land from ours.

Bright fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green;
So to the Jews fair Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.

But timorous mortals start and shrink
To cross the narrow sea;
And linger, trembling on the brink,
And fear to launch away.

O could we make our doubts remove,
Those gloomy doubts that rise,
And see the Canaan that we love,
With faith's illumined 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.

The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts