A Prospect of Heaven Makes Death Easy

There is a land of pure delight

   Where saints immortal reign;

Infinite day excludes the night,

   And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides,

   And never-withering flowers;

Death like a narrow sea divides

   This heavenly land from ours.

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood

   Stand dressed in living green:

So to the Jews old Canaan stood,

   While Jordan rolled between.

But timorous mortals start and shrink

   To cross this narrow sea,

And linger shivering on the brink,

   And fear to launch away.

Oh could we make our doubts remove,

   These gloomy doubts that rise,

And see the Canaan that we love,

   With unbeclouded 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.