Reward of Saints

O tell me of heaven, sweet heaven

No. 1008
Metre P. M.
Tune TELL ME OF HEAVEN.
Words Sarah M. Swan.
Music Unknown.
Key C major
Singing key B♭ major
Time 6/8
6 stanzas

Words

O tell me of heaven, sweet heaven,The home of the pure and the blest,Where sorrow and sin cannot enter,Where the weary forever shall rest.Let me hear of that heavenly city,Where all is immortal and fair;And I'll flee from all earthly enchantments,And earnestly long to be there.

Let others seek earthly possessions,And lay up their treasures below;I have heard of a land that is better,And to seek it with ardor I 'll go.I have heard of a world robed in glory,And freed from temptation and care,Where sickness and death may not enter,And I long, O, I long to be there.

Ambition may spread her bright phantoms,And whisper of honor and fame,She may lure on her thousands to labor,To win an illustrious name;Be this my ambition, to followThe path my Redeemer has trod,Be an heir of his heavenly kingdom,And dwell in the city of God.

Though the way of the wicked may prosper,And be sprinkled with flowers so gay,Though wide be the path that they travel,And pleasant and easy the way,Though no troubles their pathway encompass,Triumphant through life though they go,I 'll envy them not, for their journeyEnds only in sorrow and woe.

Let me enter the gate that is narrow,The way that with danger is spread,And though rugged and dark be my pathway,One bright ray is over it shed;For I hear the sweet voice of my Saviour,Saying, "Fear not, for I am thy God;I know thy temptations and trials,For I the rough pathway have trod."

Dear Saviour, thy promise is precious,Thy guidance I evermore crave:O help me to walk in thy footsteps,And trust in thy power to save:O give me a place in thy kingdom,When life with its turmoil is o'er;Let me dwell with the King in his beauty,And I ask, O, I ask for no more.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: running head «REWARD OF SAINTS.»; hymn number «1008» (large), tune name «TELL ME OF HEAVEN. P. M.» centred over the music (capitals and small capitals), «UNKNOWN.» at the right (capitals and small capitals). The whole page is this one hymn; no reference line is printed (P. M., no alternative tunes). Stanza 1 is interlinear, between the staves of the three systems, in a small condensed bold face, with «1.» before «O»; the word spaces of that face are very thin, so that «tell me», «of heaven» and «I'll flee» look set solid at first sight. Under the staves only «sor - row», «can - not», «wea - ry», «cit - y» (spaced hyphens), «for-ev-er» and (the second time) «earnest-ly» (close hyphens) are hyphenated; «enter», «heavenly», «immortal», «earthly», «enchantments» and (the first time) «earnestly» are set solid (see `lyrics_syllables.txt`). The music sings the last line twice, printed out in full under the staves («And earnestly long to be there, And earnest-ly long to be there.») — the stanza below gives the eight verse lines once, as a poem, with the final reading «there.». Stanzas 2–6 are printed as text in two columns below the music, numbered «2»–«6» without periods (written «2.»–«6.» here, as in the other deliveries of this book); the even lines are indented, and stanza 1 is laid out the same way here. Three long verses are broken by the column width and their end turned over on an extra, deeper-indented line: stanza 3, line 1 («phan- / toms,»), stanza 4, line 5 («encom- / pass,») and stanza 5, line 3 («path- / way,»); each verse is one line here. In stanza 4 the type is set so tight that «the way» (line 1) and «they go» (line 6) almost touch; they are two words each. «I 'll» is printed with a space before the apostrophe in stanza 2 (line 4) and stanza 4 (line 7) and is kept so (as in HT_0026, HT_0077); under the staves «I'll» has no space. The print sets a thin space before «;» and «:» («below ;», «name ;», «shed ;», «God ;», «crave :», «save :», «o'er ;») and inside the quotation marks of stanza 5 («" Fear», «trod. "»); they are closed up here, and the quotation marks and apostrophes are written straight. «Sarah M. Swan.» in bold italics, right-aligned, after stanza 6. Spelling («ardor», «honor», «labor», «Saviour»), punctuation and capitals are the print's.