Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HEAVEN, by ISAAC WATTS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HEAVEN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is a land of pure delight
Last Line: Should fright us from the shore.
Variant Title(s): The Heavenly Canaan;the Heavenly Land;a Prospect Of Heaven Makes Death Easy
Subject(s): Death; Future Life; Heaven; Religion; Dead, The; Retribution; Eternity; After Life; Paradise; Theology


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,
Those 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.




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