Bible Songs — Missionary Songs

We'll Live in Tents

God bids his people on the earth,

No. 1262
Tune WE'LL LIVE IN TENTS.
Words H. G. S.
Music H. G. S.
Key A major
Singing key G major
Time 3/4
4 stanzas

Words

God bids his people on the earth,Before he comes and calls them henceTo live unknit to home and hearth,Like far-bound travelers—in tents.

Chorus.

We'll live in tents until our feetShall reach the land by sin untrod,The gate of pearl, the golden street,Whose Builder and whose Maker, God.

Tenor and bass, under the first two lines of the chorus:We'll live in tents until our feetShall reach the land

It is his will that we should passLike strangers, sep'rate and asideFrom all the vain and worldly massThat crowd the Babylons of pride.

He'd have us rear no stately towers,Sink no foundation walls of stone.But camp each night a few short hours,And ere the morrow's dawn move on.

O brother, whatsoever chainBinds us to fleshly lust and strife,Here let us rend it in God's name,And live, henceforth, the pilgrim life.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: hymn number «1262» (large, left), title «WE'LL LIVE IN TENTS.» centred (condensed capitals with larger initials); under it the epigraph in two lines, «"Strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a / country."—Heb. 11 : 13, 14.»; «H. G. S.» at the left and again at the right (capitals); no meter, no reference line and no running head (the page opens with the last system of 1261, «WORKING, O CHRIST, WITH THEE.—Concluded.»). The four stanzas are interlinear, four lines between the staves of systems 1–2, numbered «1.»–«4.» in system 1; each stanza is four verse lines, given here as the verse lines of the poem (the staff break falls after the second verse line of each stanza). «CHORUS.» is printed over the treble staff at the start of system 3; its words stand once. Under the first half of the chorus (system 3) a second, lower line repeats «We'll live in tents un - til our feet Shall reach the land», shifted to the right: tenor and bass sing it, entering after rests, while soprano and alto sing the upper line; from «by sin untrod,» all voices sing together. The chorus is given here once, after stanza 1, as printed. Syllable hyphens are joined («peo - ple», «Be - fore», «sep-'rate» → «sep'rate», «a - side», «state-ly», «foun - da - tion», «broth - er», «what - so - ev - er», «flesh - ly», «un - knit», «trav - el - ers», «world-ly», «Bab - y - lons», «pil-grim», «un-til», «un-trod», «gold - en», «Mak-er»); «far-bound» keeps its hyphen (a compound). The print sets a thin space before the colon of «11 : 13»; it is closed up here. Under the music: «Copyrighted 1878, by F. H. Revell. By per.» (centred; the last two figures of the year lie under an ink blot — see uncertainties.md) and the page number «479». Spelling, punctuation and capitals are the print's («travelers—in tents.», stanza 1 line 2 without a stop after «hence»).