Christ My Song - 2296
O safe at home, where the dark tempter roams not - Far Better
(Horatius Bonar/Johannes Thomas Rüegg)
Far Better.
1. O safe at home, where the dark tempter roams not,
how have I envied thy far happier lot!
Already resting where the evil comes not;
the tear, the toil, the woe, the sin forgot. PDF - Midi
2. O safe in port, where the rough billow breaks not,
where the wild sea-moan saddens thee no more,
where the remorseless stroke of tempest shakes not;
when, when shall I too gain that tranquil shore?
3. O bright, amid the brightness all eternal;
when shall I breathe with thee the purer air?
Air of a land whose clime is ever vernal,
a land without a serpent or a snare.
4. Away, above these scenes of guilt and folly,
beyond this desert's heat and dreariness;
safe in the city of the ever holy,
let me make haste to join thy earlier bliss.
5. Another battle fought, and oh! not lost,
tells of the ending of this fight and thrall;
another ridge of time's lone moorland crossed,
gives nearer prospect of the jasper wall.
6. Just gone within the veil, where I shall follow,
not far before me, hardly out of sight;
I down beneath thee in this cloudy hollow,
and thou above me on yon sunny height.
7. Gone to begin a new and happier story,
thy bitterer tale of earth now told and done;
these outer shadows for that inner glory
exchanged for ever, – O thrice blessed one!
8. O freed from fetters of this lonesome prison;
how I shall greet thee in that day of days,
when he who died, yea rather who is risen,
shall these frail frames from dust and darkness raise!
Horatius Bonar, Hymns of Faith and Hope I, 1878, 79-80.