Over the River

by Nancy Priest Wakefield

Source of witness transcribed: The Semi-Weekly Standard (Raleigh, North Carolina)

Date of witness transcribed: 7 October 1857

Notes about this poem: "Over the River" was printed in at least 235 newspapers during the nineteenth century. It can be found using ID 7136 in this table of most widely-reprinted poems.

It was set to music and printed in hymnaries, where it was attributed to well known hymn writer Nancy A. Wakefield Priest (or, sometimes, Nancy Priest Wakefield).

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• Over the river they beckon to me—
• Loved ones who’ve crossed to the further side;
• The gleam of their snowy robes I see,
• But their voices are drowned by the rushing tide.
• There’s one with ringlets of sunny gold,
• And eyes the reflection of Heaven’s own blue;
• He crossed in the twilight, gray and cold,
• And the pale mist hid him from mortal view.
• We saw not the angels that met him there;
• The gate of the city we could not see;—
• Over the river, over the river,

• My brother stands waiting to welcome me!

• Over the river the boatman pale,
• Carried another—the household pet;
• Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale—
• Darling Minnie! I see her yet!
• She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands,
• And fearlessly entered the phantom bark;
• We watched it glide from the silver sands,
• And all our sunshine grew strangely dark.
• We know she is safe on the further side,
• Where all the ransomed and angels be;
• Over the river, the mystic river,

• My childhood’s idol is waiting for me.

• For none return from those quiet shores
• Who cross with the boatman cold and pale;
• We hear the dip of the golden oars,
• And catch a gleam of the snowy sail,—
• And lo! they have passed from our yearning hearts;
• They cross the stream and are gone for aye:
• We may not sunder the vail apart
• That hides from our visions the gates of day.
• We only know that their barks no more
• May sail with us o’er life’s stormy sea;
• Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore,

• They watch, and beckon, and wait for me!

• And I sit and think, when the sunset’s gold
• Is flushing river and hill and shore,
• I shall one day stand by the water cold,
• And list for the sound of the boatman’s oar:
• I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail;
• I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand;
• I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale,
• To the better shore of the spirit land;
• I shall know the loved who have gone before,
• And joyfully sweet will the meeting be,
• When over the river, the peaceful river,
• The angel of Death shall carry me!

Springfield Republican