When shall Thy love­ly face be seen?
When shall our eyes behold our God?
What lengths of dist­ance lie between,
And hills of guilt? A hea­vy load!

Our months are ages of de­lay,
And slow­ly ev­ery mo­ment wears;
Fly, wing­èd time, and roll away
These te­di­ous rounds of slug­gish years.

Ye hea­ven­ly gates, loose all your chains!
Let th’eter­nal pil­lars bow,
Blest Sav­ior! cleave the star­ry plains,
And make the crys­tal mount­ains flow!

Hark, how Thy saints unite their cries,
And pray and wait the ge­ne­ral doom;
Come Thou, the Soul of all of our joys,
Thou, the De­sire of na­tions, come!

Put Thy bright robes of tri­umph on,
And bless our eyes, and bless our ears,
Thou ab­sent love, Thou dear un­known,
Thou fair­est of ten thou­sand fairs.

Our heart-strings groan with deep com­plaint,
Our flesh lies pant­ing, Lord, for Thee,
And ev­ery limb, and ev­ery joint,
Stretches for im­mor­ta­li­ty.

Our spi­rits shake their eag­er wings
And burn to meet Thy fly­ing throne;
We rise away from mor­tal things
T’attend Thy shin­ing cha­ri­ot down.

Now let our cheer­ful eyes sur­vey
The blaz­ing earth, the melt­ing hills;
Nor fear to see the lightn­ings play,
And flash along be­fore Thy wheels!

O for a shout of vio­lent joys
To join the trum­pet’s thun­der­ing sound!
The an­gel her­ald shakes the skies,
Awakes the graves, and tears the ground.

Ye slum­ber­ing saints, a heav’n­ly host
Stands wait­ing at your gap­ing tombs;
Let ev­ery sac­red sleep­ing dust
Leap in­to life, for Je­sus comes.

Jesus, the God of might and love,
New molds our limbs of cum­brous clay;
Quick as se­ra­phic flames we move,
Active and young, and fair as they.

Our airy feet with un­known flight
Swift as the mo­tions of de­sire,
Run up the hills of hea­ven­ly light,
And leave the wel­ter­ing world in fire.