Christ My Song - 971
Now, pilgrim! of thy journey home - To an Aged Christian on his Birthday (Charlotte Elliott/Johannes Thomas Rüegg)
To an Aged Christian on his Birthday.
1. Now, pilgrim! of thy journey home
but one short stage remains;
and, brightening through the evening's gloom,
across the distant plains
methinks thine eye may catch a sight
of that sweet shore of rest
where friends are waiting, robed in white,
to hail the expected guest; PDF - Midi
2. where every hope, yet incomplete,
each unfulfilled desire,
fruition's plenitude shall meet,
till bliss can rise no higher.
O! did our hearts indeed receive
faith in her power sublime,
the Christian would rejoice, not grieve,
to mark the lapse of time.
3. Nature may weep o'er life's short span
when forms we love decay:
faith views the immortal inward man,
and wipes the tear away.
And when we feel we cannot now
shelter one heart we prize
from many a conflict, many a woe,
or brush its secret sighs;
4. then, as we see them onward borne,
by time's resistless flow,
to that bright shore where none can mourn,
where glory crowns each brow;
should we not hail their nearer bliss,
when faith's sure hope is given!
What means "advancing age" but this, –
the drawing near to heaven?
Charlotte Elliott, Selections from the Poems of Charlotte Elliott, 153-154.
There the hymn is divided in eight 4-line-stanzas.