Reward of Saints

There is a land, a better land than this

No. 1003
Metre P. M.
Tune BETTER LAND.
Words Anon.
Music W. J. Bostwick.
Key G major
Singing key F major
Time 4/4
4 stanzas

Words

There is a land, a better land than this,—There's my home, there's my home!A land of pure, unbounded, perfect bliss,—There's my home, there's my home.A captive on this desert shore,I long to count my exile o'er,And be where sorrows come no more;There's my home, there's my home.

Far, far I am from my own happy shore,—I would go, I would go;—But yet my days of exile are not o'er:I would go, I would go.I would not stay though earth were mine;Though all its treasures for me shine,A captive here I still would pine:I would go, I would go.

Bright visions of that blissful land appear,—There's my home, there's my home,—How long a pilgrim must I wander here?There 's my home, there 's my home.O tell me that I soon shall be,With all the ransomed exiles, free,—In that blest land I long to see:There 's my home, there 's my home.

There is a land, a brighter land than this,—Joys are there, joys are there;—No pain or sorrow, sickness or distress,Reaches there, reaches there.Bright fields of pleasure greet the eye,And crystal streams that never dry;O give me wings! I now would fly,And be there, and be there.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: running head «REWARD OF SAINTS.»; hymn number «1003» (large, left), tune name «BETTER LAND. P. M.» centred over the music (condensed display capitals), «W. J. BOSTWICK.» at the right (capitals and small capitals); printed vertically in the left margin, reading upward, «Copyrighted 1878» (beside system 4) «by J. E. White,» (beside system 3, with a comma). Stanza 1 is interlinear, between the staves, one text line per system (two verse lines each), with «1.» before «There»: «There is a land, a bet - ter land than this,—There's my home, there's my home!» / «A land of pure, un - bounded, per - fect bliss,—There's my home, there's my home.» / «A cap - tive on this des - ert shore, I long to count my ex - ile o'er,» / «And be where sor - rows come no more; There's my home, there's my home.»; its eight verse lines are given here as poetry. Stanzas 2–4 are printed as text below the music, without a reference line: stanza 2 and the first four lines of stanza 3 in the left column, the rest of stanza 3 and stanza 4 in the right column; «Anon.» in italics after stanza 4. The stanza numbers of the text stanzas are printed without a full stop («2 Far,»); they are numbered «2.»–«4.» here like stanza 1. Lines 2, 4 and 8 of each text stanza are indented in the print (lines 1, 3, 5–7 flush); stanza 1 is laid out the same way here. Stanza 3, line 1 is too long for the column and is broken inside the word («land ap- / pear,—», the second part on an extra, deeper-indented line); it is one verse line here, «appear,—». «There's» is printed closed in stanza 1 and in stanza 3, line 2, and with a space before the apostrophe («There 's», «there 's») in stanza 3, lines 4 and 8; both is not reproduced (parent normalisation, the convention of the other hymnals). The printer's thin space before «;», «:» and «!» («go ;—», «o'er :», «mine ;», «pine :», «see :», «there ;—», «dry ;», «wings !», «home !») is closed up here; apostrophes are written straight. Spelling, punctuation and capitals are the print's.