We’ve room to build holy altars
Where our crumbling idols lay;
We’ve room for heavenly visions,
When our earth dreams fade away.
Through rifts and rents in our fortune
We gazed with blinding tears,
Till glimpses of light and beauty
Gilded our gloomy fears.
An angel stood at our threshold,
We thought him a child of night,
Till we saw the print of his steps
Made lines of living light.
We had much the world calls precious;
We had heaps of shining dust;
He laid his hand on our treasures,
And wrote on them moth and rust.
But still we had other treasures,
That gold was too poor to buy,
We clasped them closer and closer,
But saw them fade and die.
Our spirit grew faint and heavy,
Deep shadows lay on our years,
Till light from the holy city,
Streamed through our mist of tears.
And we thanked the chastening angel
Who shaded our earthly light,
For the light and beautiful visions
That broke on our clearer sight.
Our first view of the Holy City
Came through our darken’d years,
The songs that lightened our sorrows,
We heard ’mid our night of tears.