Our country is Immanuel’s ground

Our country is Immanuel’s ground. Anna Letitia Barbauld* (1742-1825).  This is a selection of stanzas from a hymn published in Barbauld’s Poems (1792) beginning ‘Lo where a crowd of Pilgrims toil/ Yon craggy steeps among!’ The usual selection of stanzas begins as above, which is different from Barbauld’s first line (‘...Emanuel’s land’).   She portrays the pilgrims as singing on their way: “Our country is Emanuel’s land, We seek that promised soil; The songs of Zion chear our hearts, While strangers here we toil.  “Oft do our eyes with joy o’erflow, And oft are bathed in tears, Yet nought but heaven our hopes can raise, And nought but sin our fears.  “The flowers that spring...