Bible Songs — Reward of Saints

Forever with the Lord

"Forever with the Lord!"

No. 1358
Tune FOREVER WITH THE LORD.
Words James Montgomery.
Music Isaac B. Woodbury.
Key G major
Singing key E♭ major
Time 4/4
4 stanzas

Words

"Forever with the Lord!"Amen, so let it be;Life for the dead is in that word:'Tis immortality.Here in this body pent,Absent from him I roam;Yet nightly pitch my moving tentA day's march nearer home.

My Father's house on high,Home of my soul, how nearAt times to faith's aspiring eye,Thy golden gates appear!Ah, then my spirit faintsTo reach the land I love;The bright inheritance of saints,Jerusalem above.

And when the morn shall comeThat ends earth's night of pain,Thro' grace I shall escape the tomb,And life eternal gain;Then knowing "as I'm known,"How shall I love that word,And oft repeat before the throne,"Forever with the Lord!"

"Forever with the Lord!"Father, if 'tis thy will,The promise of that faithful wordE'en now to me fulfill.Be thou at my right hand,Then I can never fail;Uphold thou me, and I shall stand,And in thy strength prevail.

Chorus.

Nearer home, nearer home,A day's march nearer home.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: no running head on p. 568 (the page opens with the hymn); hymn number «1358» (large, left), title «Forever with the Lord.» centred (condensed capitals and small capitals: «F», «W», «T», «L» full capitals); under it the epigraph in small roman, one paragraph of two lines (the second centred), the two quotations run on: «"Having a desire to depart, and be with Christ ; which is far better."—Phil. 1 : 23. "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."—Col. 3 : 4.» (old-style figures); on the next line «JAMES MONTGOMERY.» at the left (words) and «ISAAC B. WOODBURY.» at the right (music), in capitals and small capitals. No meter, no tune name other than the title, no reference line, no copyright line. All four stanzas are interlinear, numbered «1.»–«4.», between the staves of systems 1–4; «CHORUS.» (bold capitals) stands over the second half of system 4, and the chorus words are printed once, on the second interlinear line after «ru-sa-lem a-bove.». Each printed line of words carries several verse lines; they are given here one verse line per line. The words divided under the notes are joined here («For-ev-er», «A-men», «im-mor-tal-i-ty», «bod-y», «Ab-sent», «night-ly», «mov-ing», «near-er», «as-pir-ing», «gold-en», «ap-pear», «spir-it», «in-her-it-ance», «Je-ru-sa-lem», «a-bove», «es-cape», «e-ter-nal», «know-ing», «re-peat», «be-fore», «Fa-ther», «prom-ise», «faith-ful», «ful-fill», «nev-er», «Up-hold») — the divisions are in `lyrics_syllables.txt`. The print sets a thin space before «:», «;» and «!» («word :», «gain ;», «Lord !», «ap-pear !»); it is closed up here; the curly apostrophes and quotes are written straight («'Tis», «Father's», «earth's», «Thro'», «E'en», «'tis»). In stanza 3, «earth's» is set in a smaller condensed type to fit the bar. Spelling («Thro'», «fulfill»), capitals and punctuation are the print's.