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Introduction | History of Sacred Harp | The Spaces of Sacred Harp | Many Harps | Sacred Harp as Folk Tradition | Sacred Harp and the Pastoral | Conclusion | Recommended Resources

For all of their evocation of tradition, place, family, friends, and good food, Sacred Harp singers face the transience of earthly life without illusions:

So fades the lovely blooming flow'r,
Frail, smiling solace of an hour;
So soon our transient comforts fly,
And pleasure only blooms to die.

— Anne Steele, "Distress," The Sacred Harp (1991), 32b.

Song after song in The Sacred Harp expresses longing for the next life, frequently designated "Canaan" and celebrated as a heavenly promised land. Rooted in Biblical descriptions, the geography of Canaan is depicted as a peaceful land of lush vegetation and gentle, flowing rivers where families and friends reunite permanently and all sorrows cease. By contrast, this present life is a tangled wilderness or the stormy banks of the Jordan River, which one must cross:

Sweet rivers of redeeming love
Lie just before mine eyes,
Had I the pinions of a dove,
I'd to those rivers fly;
I'd rise superior to my pain,
With joy outstrip the wind,
I'd cross o'er Jordan's stormy waves
And leave the world behind.

A few more days, or years at most,
My troubles will be o'er;
I hope to join the heav'nly host
On Canaan's happy shore.
My raptured soul shall drink and feast
In love's unbounded sea;
The glorious hope of endless rest
Is ravishing for me.

— John Adam Granade, "Sweet Rivers," The Sacred Harp (1991), 61.

"The Promised Land" includes the lyrics:

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land
Where my possessions lie.

O the transporting, rapt'rous scene
That rises to my sight!
Sweet fields arrayed in living green,
And rivers of delight.

Filled with delight, my raptured soul
Would here no longer stay!
Though Jordan's waves around me roll,
Fearless I'd launch away.

— Samuel Stennet, The Sacred Harp (1991), 128.

The pastoral imagery of these songs may further explain why they have maintained loyalty from rural people during generations of migration and urbanization.

Audio Recording:
"The Promised Land" (1:30 min.)
(RealMedia | Windows Media| QuickTime
The Wootten family sings "The Promised Land." Lyrics to the song are featured above.

Introduction | History of Sacred Harp | The Spaces of Sacred Harp | Many Harps | Sacred Harp as Folk Tradition | Sacred Harp and the Pastoral | Conclusion | Recommended Resources

Published: 4 June 2007

© 2007 James B. Wallace and Southern Spaces