We are sighing for you, far land—
We are praying for you, far land,
All our life long, working, waiting, night and day:
But as waves that die to reach the farther shore
Break our hearts that die to reach you evermore—
All our hearts are breaking, breaking toward that shore,
O far land, so near and far away!
. . . . . . . . . .

Through the terror of the ages
We have sought it, till the ages
Have stamped our lifted faces with our love:
But long though we have wandered, where we are
The far land is not. O that land is far!
Beyond the night, beyond the morning-star
The far land grows further as we move.

In music and in story,
In song and sacred story
We yearned to it, in color and in sound:
But swifter than the soul the secret flies,
The vision pales—beyond, beyond it lies,
Beyond all songs, beyond all harmonies,
The far land that we have never found.

In the sweat of daily labor,
In the anguish of our labor
We strove to bind it fast in steel and stone:
But lo—the walls were dust, the work was naught,
And O it was not what the heart had sought!
'Twas something dearer that our blood had bought—
The far land that we have never known.

Beyond long sea-horizons,
Beyond sad sea-horizons
Our furrowing keels have wandered in that quest;
Beyond the sunset, tremulous and dear,
Glimmered that land, but as our prows drew near
Faded the dream, the far land is not here,
The far land, the home-land of the breast.

So we built ourselves a heaven,
Our God we set in heaven,
With prayer and praise we wrought them to our will:
But they could not fill the measure of our love
For the far land—O they were not great enough!
There is nothing, there is nothing great enough!
The far land is something greater still.

We are sighing for you, far land—
We are dying for you, far land,
In the trenches, in the bloody ruck and blind.
We are coming, we are coming, every breath
Is a wave that bears us nearer to you, death
Seals our cry. O might our children find ere death
The far land that we have died to find!