Verse 1
For ever with the Lord!
Amen, so let it be;
Life from the dead is in that word,
’Tis immortality:
Here in the body pent,
Absent from Him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day’s march nearer home.
Verse 2
My Father’s house on high,
Home of my soul, how near,
At times, to faith’s foreseeing eye,
Thy golden gates appear:
Ah! then my spirit faints
To reach the land I love,
The bright inheritance of saints,
Jerusalem above.
Verse 3
I hear at morn and even,
At noon and midnight hour,
The choral harmonies of heaven
Earth’s Babel tongues o’erpower:
Then, then I feel that He,
Remembered or forgot,
The Lord, is never far from me,
Though I perceive Him not.
Verse 4
For ever with the Lord!
Father, if ’tis Thy will,
The promise of that faithful word
E’en here to me fulfil;
Be Thou at my right hand,
Then can I never fail,
Uphold Thou me, and I shall stand;
Fight, and I must prevail.
Verse 5
So when my latest breath
Shall rend the veil in twain,
By death I shall escape from death,
And life eternal gain.
Knowing as I am known,
How shall I love that word,
And oft repeat before the throne,
“For ever with the Lord!”