The hosts of God, by Joshua led,
Approach the Jordan’s eddying tide,
And priests, with veiled and bended head,
Bear to its grassy side
The Ark, beneath whose cherub wings
Are kept the pure and precious things—
Behind the morn its radiance flings
On bannered lance and buckler bright,
And brazen trump, whose music rings
To hail the dawning light.

The flood before them boils and leaps
Along its deep and rocky bed,
But still the moving column keeps
Onward its fearless tread,
As though no foamy current flowed
Between it and the blest abode,
To which by many a thorny road
And desert plain its steps had passed,
And which in morning’s glory glowed
Green, beautiful and vast.

And now the Levites’ sandaled feet
Are moistened by the river’s edge,
Which curls and breaks with murmur sweet
Amid the bending sedge.
Yet pause they not; with heart of prayer,
And faith supported strength they bear
That which the torrent shall not dare
Submerge or mar with angry tide—
They know not how—but know that there
God will a way provide.

Their faith hath triumphed—with the sound
Of rushing thunder backward fly
The affrighted billows, and the ground
They moistened now is dry;
Cleft in the midst the waters stand
Obedient to their God’s command,
Towering aloft on either hand
A glassy and resplendent heap,
Where scenes which blessed the promised land
In mirrored beauty sleep.

And fearless down the dark defile
The countless hosts of Israel go,
And loud from trump and harp the while
The strains of gladness flow.
The depths that voices never gave,
But those of warring wind and wave,
Send from their dark and oozy grave
The echoing tread of joyous throngs,
And praise of Him whose hand can save,
In loud triumphant songs.

And now the farther shore they gain,
And kneeling kiss the promised spot,
Which through long years of toil and pain
Their anxious steps had sought.
Whilst with a wild and maddening roar
The tides, disjoined from shore to shore,
Their long suspended waters pour
To fill the yawning gulf between,
Closed is the bright mysterious door
By which they entered in.

Christian, behold the typic shade
Of that dim path prepared for thee—
Behold in Jordan’s tide displayed
Death’s ever flowing sea.
Thou treadest still life’s desert plain
In toil and sorrow, care and pain;
Trials and doubts and fears maintain
With thee a fierce and bitter strife,
And but for heav’nly aid would gain
The conquest o’er thy life.

Yet soon that toilsome war shall cease,
And thou beside the flood shalt stand,
Beyond whose waves are realms of peace,
A pure and holy land.
But if thou still hast kept the ark
Of God before thee as a mark,
Fear not the troubled waters dark,
Howe’er they rage and chafe and roar,
On that mysterious voyage embark,
And God will guide thee o’er.

Pass boldly on in faith and prayer,
And waves of doubt and floods of fear
Shall part and leave a passage there
To changeless glories near.
The dim obscurity shall fail
In Death’s dark pass and shadowy vale,
And thou with gladdened eye shalt hail
Bright glimpses of the glorious things
Which lie beyond and render pale
The angels’ flashing wings.

And when thou’st gained that blessèd shore
Forever freed from sin and pain,
Death’s cheated waves shall hiss and roar,
Mingling their streams again.
Thence ever closed, that shadowy door
Shall entrance give to earth no more—
But thou shalt reach the golden floor
By Jesus lit and angels trod,
Ever and ever to adore
Thy Savior and thy God.

Joseph Hart Clinch
The Captivity in Babylon, 1840