Classic Poem

No joy is true, save that which hath no end;
No life is true, save that which liveth ever;
No health is sound, save that which God doth send;
No love is real, save that which changeth never.

Heaven were no heaven, if its dear light could fade;
If its fair glory could hereafter wane;
If its sweet skies could suffer stain or shade,
Or its soft breezes waft one note of pain.

And what would be the city of the just,
If time could shake its battlements, or age
Could crumble down its palaces to dust,
Or with its towers victorious warfare wage;

If its pure river could sink low or cease,
Or its rich palm-boughs shed the leaf and die;
If there could pass upon its loveliness
One darkening taint of time's mortality;

If its high harmonies could lose their tone,
Or one of its glad songs could silenced be;
If, of its voices, even the feeblest one
Should falter in the glorious melody;

If one of all its stars should e'er grow faint,
Or one of its bright lamps should e'er burn low;
If, through its happy air, decay's dull taint
Should for a moment its dark poison throw!

But no. Its beauty is for ever vernal;
Its glory is the glory of its King,
Undying, incorruptible, eternal;
And ever new the songs its dwellers sing.

Its wandering winds need breathe no balm for healing,
For all is health beneath its loving skies;
Hour welcomes hour, fresh youth and bloom revealing;
There, 'tis not death that lives and life that dies.

Life lives, and death has died; the rifled tomb
Has yielded back its long-imprisoned clay;
The dreaded conquerer is overcome,
And mortal night is now immortal day.

O heaven of heavens, how true thy life must be!
O home of God, how excellent thy light!
O long, long summer of eternity,
Bright noon of angels, ever clear and bright!

Glad jubilee, with nothing to disturb,
When the great Hallel of the purged earth
Rings round the universe, from orb to orb,
As when the sons of God sang o'er its birth.

Then, bondage broken and the Red Sea pass'd,
We sing the song of Moses and the Lamb;
Earth's battles o'er, the kingdom won at last,
With joy we join creation's endless psalm.