He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces
Isaiah 25:8
Words: Nikolai F. S. Grundtvig. Grundtvig worked on this text from 1824 to 1853, and several versions emerged: Jeg kender et Land (1824), then O Dejlige Land (1832), and finally O Kristelighed (1853). It is also sometimes known as De Levendes Land. The text below was translated from Danish to English by Søren D. Rodholm (1877–1951).
Music: King’s Land Ludvig M. Lindeman, 1862 (🔊
).
If you know where to get a good photo of Rodholm (head & shoulders, at least 200×300 pixels), would you send us an e-mail?
O land of our king!
Where harvest embraces the flowery spring,
Where all things worth having forever remain,
Where nothing we miss but our sorrow and pain;
All mankind is longing to find and explore
Thy beautiful shore.
How blessèd the land!
Where time is not measured by tears or with sand,
Where fades not the flower, the bird never dies,
Where joys are not bubbles that break as they rise;
Where life does not crown us with white for the gloom
Of death and the tomb.
How blessèd to be
Where death has no sting, where from sin we are free,
Where all that decayed in new glory shall bloom,
Where all that was ruined shall rise from the tomb,
Where love grows in light as a summer day fair
With flower-crowned hair.
My spirit receives
Thro’ Christ what the world neither knows nor believes;
This while we are here, we but dimly can know,
Though feeling within us its heavenly glow.
The Lord saith: On earth as in Heaven above
My kingdom is love.