The Greatness of God

O Majesty unspeakable and dread!
  Wert Thou less mighty than Thou art,
Thou wert, O Lord! too great for our belief,
  Too little for our heart.

Thy greatness would seem monstrous by the side
  Of creatures frail and undivine;
Yet they would have a greatness of their own
  Free and apart from Thine.

Such grandeur were but a created thing,
  A spectre, terror, and a grief,
Out of all keeping with a world so calm,
  Oppressing our belief.

But greatness, which is infinite makes room
  For all things in its lap to lie;
We should be crushed by a magnificence
  Short of infinity.

It would outgrow us from the face of things,
  Still prospering as we decayed,
And, like a tyrannous rival, it would feed
  Upon the wrecks it made.

But what is infinite must be a home,
  A shelter for the meanest life,
Where it is free to reach its greatest growth
  Far from the touch of strife.

We share in what is infinite: tis ours,
  For we and it alike are Thine;
What I enjoy, great God! by right of Thee
  Is more than doubly mine.

Thus doth Thy hospitable greatness lie
  Outside us like a boundless sea;
We cannot lose ourselves where all is home,
  Nor drift away from Thee.

Out on that sea we are in harbour still,
  And scarce advert to winds and tides,
Like ships that ride at anchor, with the waves
  Flapping against their sides.

Thus doth Thy grandeur make us grand ourselves;
  ’Tis goodness bids us fear;
Thy greatness makes us brave as children are,
  When those they love are near.

Great God, our lowliness takes heart to play
  Beneath the shadow of Thy state;
The only comfort of our littleness
  Is that Thou art so great.

Then on Thy grandeur I will lay me down;
  Already life is heaven for me;
No cradled child more softly lies than I,
  Come soon, Eternity!

The Fear of God

My fear of Thee, O Lord, exults
Like life within my veins,
A fear which rightly claims to be
One of love’s sacred pains.

Thy goodness to Thy saints of old
An awful thing appeared;
For were Thy majesty less good
Much less would it be feared.

There is no joy the soul can meet
Upon life’s various road
Like the sweet fear that sits and shrinks
Under the eye of God.

A special joy is in all love
For objects we revere;
Thus joy in God will always be
Proportioned to our fear.

Oh Thou art greatly to be feared,
Thou art so prompt to bless!
The dread to miss such love as Thine
Makes fear but love’s excess.

The fulness of Thy mercy seems
To fill both land and sea;
If we can break through bounds so vast,
How exiled shall we be!

For grace is fearful, which each hour
Our path in life has crossed;
If it were rarer, it might be
Less easy to be lost.

But fear is love, and love is fear,
And in and out they move;
But fear is an intenser joy
Than mere unfrightened love.

When most I fear Thee, Lord! then most
Familiar I appear;
And I am in my soul most free,
When I am most in fear.

I should not love Thee as I do:
If love might make more free;
Its very sweetness would be lost
In greater liberty.

I feel Thee most a father, when
I fancy Thee most near:
And Thou comest not so nigh in love
As Thou comest, Lord! in fear.

They love Thee little, if at all,
Who do not fear Thee much;
If love is Thine attraction, Lord!
Fear is Thy very touch.

Love could not love Thee half so much
If it found Thee not so near;
It is thy nearness, which makes love
The perfectness of fear.

We fear because Thou art so good,
And because we can sin;
And when we make most show of love,
We are trembling most within.

And Father! when to us in heaven
Thou shalt Thy Face unveil,
Then more than ever will our souls
Before Thy goodness quail.

Our blessedness will be to bear
The sight of Thee so near,
And thus eternal love will be
But the ecstasy of fear.

Within the Holy Place

His priest am I, before Him day and night,

Within His Holy Place;

And death, and life, and all things dark and bright,

I spread before His Face.

Rejoicing with His joy, yet ever still,

For silence is my song;

My work to bend beneath His blessed will,

All day, and all night long—

For ever holding with Him converse sweet,

Yet speechless, for my gladness is complete.

The Indwelling Christ

Thou who givest of Thy gladness

Till the cup runs o’er

      Cup whereof the pilgrim weary

Drinks to thirst no more

Not a-nigh me, but within me

Is Thy joy divine;

Thou, O Lord, hast made Thy dwelling

In this heart of mine.

 

Need I that a law should bind me

Captive unto Thee?

Captive is my heart, rejoicing

Never to be free.

Ever with me, glorious, awful,

Tender, passing sweet,

One upon whose heart I rest me,

Worship at His Feet.

 

With me, wheresoe’er I wander,

That great Presence goes,

That unutterable gladness,

Undisturbed repose.

Everywhere the blessed stillness

Of His Holy Place

Stillness of the love that worships

Dumb before His Face.

 

To Thy house, O God my Father,

Thy lost child is come;

Led by wandering lights no longer,

I have found my home.

Over moor and fen I tracked them

Through the midnight blast,

But to find the Light eternal

In my heart at last.

The Vision of the Godhead

Unchanging and Unchangeable, before angelic eyes,

The Vision of the Godhead in its tranquil beauty lies;

And, like a city lighted up all gloriously within,

Its countless lustres glance and gleam, and sweetest worship win.

On the Unbegotten Father, awful well-spring of the Three,

On the Sole Begotten Son’s coequal Majesty.

On Him eternally breathed forth from Father and from Son.

The spirits gaze with fixed amaze, and unreckoned ages run.

 

Chorus:

Myriad, myriad angels raise

Happy hymns of wondering praise,

Ever through eternal days,

Before the Holy Trinity,

One Undivided Three!

 

Still the Fountain of the Godhead giveth forth eternal being:

Still begetting, unbegotten, still His own perfection seeing,

Still limiting His own loved Self with His dear coequal Spirit,

No change comes o’er that blissful Life, no shadow passeth near it.

And beautiful dread Attributes, all manifold and bright,

Now thousands seem, now lose themselves in one self-living light;

And far in that deep Life of God, in harmony complete,

Like crowned kings, all opposite perfections take their seat.

And in that ungrowing vision nothing deepens, nothing brightens,

But the living Life of God perpetually lightens;

 

And created life is nothing but a radiant shadow fleeing

From the unapproached lustres of that Unbeginning Being;

Spirits wise and deep have watched that everlasting Ocean,

And never o’er its lucid field hath rippled faintest motion;

In glory undistinguished never have the Three seemed One,

Nor ever in divided streams the Single Essence run.

 

There reigns the Eternal Father, in His lone prerogatives,

And, in the Father’s Mind, the Son, all self-existing, lives,

With Him, their mutual Jubilee, that deepest depth of love,

Lifegiving Life of two-fold source, the many gifted Dove!

O Bountiful! O Beautiful! can Power or Wisdom add

Fresh features to a life, so munificent and glad?

Can even uncreated Love, ye angels! give a hue

Which can ever make the Unchanging and Unchangeable look new?

 

The Mercy of the Merciful is equal to Their Might,

As wondrous as Their Love, and as Their Wisdom bright!

As They, who out of nothing called creation at the first,

In everlasting purposes Their own design had nursed,

As They, who in their solitude, Three Persons, once abode,

Vouchsafed of Their abundance to become creation’s God,—

What They owed not to Themselves They stooped to owe to man,

And pledged Their glory to him, in an unimaginable plan.

 

See! deep within the glowing depth of that Eternal Light.

What change hath come, what vision new transports angelic sight?

A creature can it be, in uncreated bliss?

A novelty in God? Oh what nameless thing is this?

The beauty of the Father’s Power is o’er it brightly shed,

The sweetness of the Spirit’s Love is unction on its head;

In the wisdom of the Son it plays its wondrous part,

While it lives the loving life of a real Human heart!

 

A Heart that hath a Mother, and a treasure of red blood,

A Heart that man can pray to, and feed upon for food!

In the brightness of the Godhead is its marvellous abode,

A change in the Unchanging, creation touching God!

Ye spirits blest, in endless rest, who on that Vision gaze,

Salute the Sacred Heart with all your worshipful amaze,

And adore, while with ecstatic skill the Three in One ye scan,

The Mercy that hath planted there that blessed Heart of Man!

 

All tranquilly, all tranquilly, doth that Blissful Vision last,

And Its brightness o’er immortalized creation will it cast;

Ungrowing and unfading, Its pure Essence doth it keep,

In the deepest of those depths where all are infinitely deep;

Unchanging and Unchangeable as It hath ever been,

As It was before that Human heart was there by angels seen,

So is it at this very hour, so will it ever be,

With that Human Heart within It, beating hot with love of me!

 

Chorus:

Myriad, myriad angels raise

Happy hymns of wondering praise,

Ever through eternal days,

Before the Holy Trinity,

One Undivided Three!

Journey of the Magi - T.S. Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Show Me Thy Face

Show me Thy face-one transient gleam

Of loveliness divine,

And I shall never think or dream

Of other love save Thine:

All lesser light will darken quite,

All lower glories wane,

The beautiful of earth will scarce

Seem beautiful again.

 

Show me Thy face-my faith and love

Shall henceforth fixed be,

And nothing here have power to move

My soul’s serenity.

My life shall seem a trance, a dream,

And all I feel and see,

Illusive, visionary Thou

The one reality!

 

Show me Thy face I shall forget

The weary days of yore,

The fretting ghosts of vain regret

Shall haunt my soul no more.

All doubts and fears for future years

In quiet trust subside,

And naught but blest content and calm

Within my breast abide.

 

Show me Thy face the heaviest cross

Will then seem light to bear;

There will be gain in every loss,

And peace with every care.

With such light feet the years will fleet,

Life seem as brief as blest,

Till I have laid my burden down,

And entered into rest.

Am I Not Enough?

Am I not enough, Mine own? enough,

Mine own, for thee?

Hath the world its palace towers,

Garden glades of magic flowers,

Where thou fain wouldst be?

Fair things and false are there,

False things but fair.

All shalt thou find at last,

Only in Me.

Am I not enough, Mine own? I, for ever

and alone, I, needing thee?

In Immanuel’s Land

The sands of time are sinking,

The dawn of Heaven breaks,

The summer morn I’ve sighed for,

The fair sweet morn awakes:

Dark, dark hath been the midnight,

But dayspring is at hand,

And glory glory dwelleth

In Immanuel’s land.

Oh! well it is for ever,

Oh! well for evermore,

My nest hung in no forest

Of all this death-doom’d shore:

Yea, let the vain world vanish,

As from the ship the strand,

While glory glory dwelleth

In Immanuel’s land.

There the Red Rose of Sharon

Unfolds its heartsome bloom,

And fills the air of Heaven

With ravishing perfume:

Oh! to behold it blossom,

While by its fragrance fann’d

Where glory glory dwelleth

In Immanuel’s land.

The King there in His beauty,

Without a veil, is seen:

It were a well-spent journey,

Though seven deaths lay between.

The Lamb, with His fair army,

Doth on Mount Zion stand,

And glory glory dwelleth

In Immanuel’s land.

Oh! Christ He is the Fountain,

The deep sweet well of love!

The streams on earth I’ve tasted,

More deep I’ll drink above:

There, to an ocean fulness,

His mercy doth expand,

And glory glory dwelleth

In Immanuel’s land.

E’en Anwoth was not heaven

E’en preaching was not Christ;

And in my sea-beat prison

My Lord and I held tryst:

And aye my murkiest storm-cloud

Was by a rainbow spann’d,

Caught from the glory dwelling

In Immanuel’s land.

But that He built a heaven

Of His surpassing love,

A little New Jerusalem,

Like to the one above,

Lord, take me o’er the water,

Had been my loud demand,

Take me to love’s own country,

Unto Immanuel’s land.

But flowers need night’s cool darkness

The moonlight and the dew;

So Christ, from one who loved it,

His shining oft withdrew;

And then for cause of absence,

My troubled soul I scann’d

But glory, shadeless, shineth

In Immanuel’s land.

The little birds of Anwoth

I used to count them blest,

Now, beside happier altars

I go to build my nest:

O’er these there broods no silence,

No graves around them stand,

For glory, deathless, dwelleth

In Immanuel’s land.

Fair Anwoth by the Solway,

To me thou still art dear!

E’en from the verge of Heaven

I drop for thee a tear.

Oh! if one soul from Anwoth

Meet me at God’s right hand,

My Heaven will be two Heavens,

In Immanuel’s land.

I have wrestled on toward Heaven,

’Gainst storm, and wind, and tide:

Now, like a weary traveller,

That leaneth on his guide,

Amid the shades of evening,

While sinks life’s lingring sand,

I hail the glory dawning

From Immanuel’s land.

Deep water cross’d life’s pathway,

The hedge of thorns was sharp;

Now these lie all behind me—

Oh! for a well-tuned harp!

Oh! to join Hallelujah

With yon triumphant band,

Who sing, where glory dwelleth,

In Immanuel’s land.

With mercy and with judgment

My web of time He wove,

And aye the dews of sorrow

Were lustered with His love.

I’ll bless the hand that guided,

I’ll bless the heart that plann’d,

When throned where glory dwelleth

In Immanuel’s land.

Soon shall the cup of glory

Wash down earth’s bitterest woes,

Soon shall the desert-briar

Break into Eden’s rose:

The curse shall change to blessing

The name on earth that’s bann’d,

Be graven on the white stone

In Immanuel’s land.

Oh! I am my Beloved’s,

And my Beloved is mine!

He brings a poor vile sinner

Into His House of wine.

I stand upon His merit,

I know no other stand,

Not e’en where glory dwelleth

In Immanuel’s land.

I shall sleep sound in Jesus,

Fill’d with His likeness rise,

To live and to adore Him,

To see Him with these eyes

Tween me and resurrection

But Paradise doth stand;

Then then for glory dwelling

In Immanuel’s land!

The Bride eyes not her garment,

But her dear Bridegroom’s face;

I will not gaze at glory,

But on my King of Grace

Not at the crown He giveth,

But on His pierced hand:

The Lamb is all the glory

Of Immanuel’s land.

I have borne scorn and hatred,

I have borne wrong and shame,

Earth’s proud ones have reproach’d me,

For Christ’s thrice blessed name:

Where God His seal set fairest

They’ve stamp’d their foulest brand;

But judgment shines like noonday

In Immanuel’s land.

They’ve summoned me before them,

But there I may not come,

My Lord says, Come up hither,

My Lord says, Welcome Home!

My kingly King, at His white throne,

My presence doth command,

Where glory glory dwelleth

In Immanuel’s land.

The Celestial Country/ Jerusalem the Golden

The world is very evil,

The times are waxing late;

Be sober and keep vigil,

The judge is at the gate-

The judge that comes in mercy,

The judge that comes with might,

To terminate the evil,

To diadem the right.

When the just and gentle Monarch

Shall summon from the tomb,

Let man, the guilty, tremble,

For Man, the God, shall doom!

Arise, arise, good Christian,

Let right to wrong succeed;

Let penitential sorrow

To heavenly gladness lead-

To the light that hath no evening,

That knows nor moon nor sun,

The light so new and golden,

The light that is but one.

And when the Sole-Begotten

Shall render up once more

The kingdom to the Father,

Whose own it was before,

Then glory yet unheard of

Shall shed abroad its ray,

Resolving all enigmas,

An endless Sabbath-day.

Then, then from his oppressors

The Hebrew shall go free,

And celebrate in triumph

The year of jubilee;

And the sunlit Land that recks not

Of tempest nor of fight,

Shall fold within its bosom

Each happy Israelite–

The Home of fadeless splendor,

Of flowers that fear no thorn,

Where they shall dwell as children,

Who here as exiles mourn.

Midst power that knows no limit,

And wisdom free from bound,

The Beatific Vision

Shall glad the Saints around-

The peace of all the faithful,

The calm of all the blest,

Inviolate, unvaried,

Divinest, sweetest, best.

Yes, peace! for war is needless-

Yes, calm! for storm is past–

And goal from finished labor,

And anchorage at last.

That peace-but who may claim it?

The guileless in their way,

Who keep the ranks of battle,

Who mean the thing they say-

The peace that is for heaven,

And shall be for the earth;

The palace that re-echoes

With festal song and mirth;

The garden, breathing spices,

The paradise on high;

Grace beautified to glory,

Unceasing minstrelsy.

There nothing can be feeble,

There none can ever mourn,

There nothing is divided,

There nothing can be torn.

‘Tis fury, ill, and scandal,

‘Tis peaceless peace below;

Peace, endless, strifeless, ageless,

The halls of Syon know.

O happy, holy portion,

Refection for the blest,

True vision of true beauty,

Sweet cure of all distrest!

Strive, man, to win that glory;

Toil, man, to gain that light;

Send hope before to grasp it,

Till hope be last in sight;

Till Jesus gives the portion

Those blessed souls to fill-

The insatiate, yet satisfied,

The full, yet craving still.

That fulness and that craving

Alike are free from pain,

Where thou, midst heavenly citizens,

A home like theirs shalt gain.

Here is the warlike trumpet;

There, life set free from sin,

When to the last Great Supper

The faithful shall come in;

When the heavenly net is laden

With fishes many and great

(So glorious in its fulness,

Yet so inviolate);

And perfect from unperfected,

And fall’n from those that stand,

And the sheep-flock from the goat-herd

Shall part an either hand.

And these shall pass to torment,

And those shall triumph then-

The new peculiar nation,

Blest number of blest men.

Jerusalem demands them;

They paid the price on earth,

And now shall reap the harvest

In blissfulness and mirth-

The glorious holy people,

Who evermore relied

Upon their Chief and Father,

The King, the Crucified–

The sacred ransomed number

Now bright with endless sheen,

Who made the Cross their watchword

Of Jesus Nazarene,

Who (fed with heavenly nectar

Where soul-like odors play)

Draw out the endless leisure

Of that long vernal day.

And, through the sacred lilies

And flowers on every side,

The happy dear-bought people

Go wandering far and wide;

Their breasts are filled with gladness,

Their mouths are tun’d to praise,

What time, now safe for ever,

On former sins they gaze:

The fouler was the error,

The sadder was the fall,

The ampler are the praises

Of Him who pardoned all.

Their one and only anthem,

The fulness of His love,

Who gives instead of torment,

Eternal joys above-

Instead of torment, glory;

Instead of death, that life

Wherewith your happy Country,

True Israelites, is rife.

Brief life is here our portion,

Brief sorrow, short-liv’d care;

The life that knows no ending-

The tearless life, is there.

O happy retribution!

Short toil, eternal rest;

For mortals and for sinners

A mansion with the blest!

That we should look, poor wand’rers,

To have our home on high!

That worms should seek for dwelling,

Beyond the starry sky!

To all one happy guerdon

Of one celestial grace;

For all, for all, who mourn their fall,

Is one eternal place.

And martyrdom hath roses

Upon that heavenly ground;

And white and virgin lilies

For virgin-souls abound.

There grief is turned to pleasure–

Such pleasure as below

No human voice can utter,

No human heart can know;

And after fleshly scandal,

And after this world’s night,

And after storm and whirlwind,

Is calm, and joy, and light.

And now we fight the battle,

But then shall wear the crown

Of full and everlasting

And passionless renown:

And now we watch and struggle,

And now we live in hope,

And Syon, in her anguish,

With Babylon must cope;

But He whom now we trust in

Shall then be seen and known,

And they that know and see Him

Shall have Him for their own.

The miserable pleasures

Of the body shall decay;

The bland and flattering struggles

Of the flesh shall pass away;

And none shall there be jealous,

And none shall there contend;

Fraud, clamor, guile-what say I?

All ill, all ill shall end!

And there is David’s Fountain,

And life in fullest glow;

And there the light is golden,

And milk and honey flow-

The light that hath no evening,

The health that hath no sore,

The life that hath no ending,

But lasteth evermore.

There Jesus shall embrace us,

There Jesus be embraced-

That spirit’s food and sunshine

Whence earthly love is chased.

Amidst the happy chorus,

A place, however low,

Shall shew Him us, and shewing,

Shall satiate evermore.

By hope we struggle onward:

While here we must be fed

By milk, as tender infants,

But there by Living Bread.

The night was full of terror,

The morn is bright with gladness;

The Cross becomes our harbor,

And we triumph after sadness.

And Jesus to His true ones

Brings trophies fair to see;

And Jesus shall be loved, and

Beheld in Galilee-

Beheld, when morn shall waken,

And shadows shall decay,

And each true-hearted servant

Shall shine as doth the day;

And every ear shall hear it–

“Behold thy King’s array,

Behold thy God in beauty,

The Law hath pass’d away!”

Yes I God my King and Portion,

In fulness of Thy grace,

We then shall see for ever,

And worship face to face.

Then Jacob into Israel,

From earthlier self estranged,

And Leah into Rachel

For ever shall be changed;

Then all the halls of Syon

For aye shall be complete,

And in the Land of Beauty,

All things of beauty meet.

For thee, O dear, dear Country!

Mine eyes their vigils keep;

For very love, beholding

Thy happy name, they weep.

The mention of thy glory

Is unction to the breast,

And medicine in sickness,

and love, and life, and rest.

O One, O only Mansion!

O Paradise of Joy!

Where tears-are ever banished,

And smiles have no alloy,

Beside thy living waters

All plants are, great and small,

The cedar of the forest,

The hyssop of the wall;

With jaspers glow thy bulwarks,

Thy streets with emeralds blaze,

The sardius and the topaz

Unite in thee their rays;

Thine ageless walls are bonded

With amethyst unpriced;

Thy Saints build up its fabric,

And the corner-stone is Christ.

The Cross is all thy splendor,

The Crucified thy praise;

His laud and benediction

Thy ransomed people raise:

“Jesus, the Gem of Beauty,

True God and Man,” they sing,

“The never-failing Garden,

The ever-golden Ring;

The Door, the Pledge, the Husband,

The Guardian of his Court;

The Day-star of Salvation,

The Porter and the Port!”

Thou hast no shore, fair ocean!

Thou hast no time, bright day!

Dear fountain of refreshment

To pilgrims far away!

Upon the Rock of Ages

They raise thy holy tower;

Thine is the victor’s laurel,

And thine the golden dower!

Thou feel’st in mystic rapture,

O Bride that know’st no guile,

The Prince’s sweetest kisses,

The Prince’s loveliest smile;

Unfading lilies, bracelets

Of living pearl thine own;

The Lamb is ever near thee,

The Bridegroom thine alone.

The Crown is He to guerdon,

The Buckler to protect,

And he Himself the Mansion,

And He the Architect.

The only art thou needest-

Thanksgiving for thy lot;

The only joy thou seekest-

The Life where Death is not.

And all thine endless leisure,

In sweetest accents, sings

The ill that was thy merit,

The wealth that is thy King’s!

Jerusalem the golden,

With milk and honey blest,

Beneath thy contemplation

Sink heart and voice oppressed.

I know not, O I know not.

What social jays are there!

What radiancy of glory,

What light beyond compare!

And when I fain would sing them,

My spirit fails and faints;

And vainly would it image

The assembly of the Saints.

They stand, those halls of Syon,

Conjubilant with song,

And bright with many an angel,

And all the martyr throng;

The Prince is ever in them,

The daylight is serene;

The pastures of the Blessed

Are decked in glorious sheen.

There is the Throne of David,

And there, from care released,

The song of them that triumph,

The shout of them that feast;

And they who, with their Leader,

Have conquered in the fight,

For ever and for ever

Are clad in robes of white!

O holy, placid harp-notes

Of that eternal hymn!

O sacred, sweet refection,

And peace of Seraphim!

O thirst, for ever ardent,

Yet evermore content!

O true peculiar vision

Of God cunctipotent!

Ye know the many mansions

For many a glorious name,

And divers retributions

That divers merits claim;

For midst the constellations

That deck our earthly sky,

This star than that is brighter-

And so it is on high.

Jerusalem the glorious!

The glory of the Elect!

O dear and future vision

That eager hearts expect!

Even now by faith I see thee,

Even here thy walls discern;

To thee my thoughts are kindled,

And strive, and pant, and yearn.

Jerusalem the only,

That look’st from heaven below,

In thee is all my glory,

In me is all my woe;

And though my body may not,

My spirit seeks thee fain,

Till flesh and earth return me

To earth and flesh again.

O none can tell thy bulwarks,

How gloriously they rise!

O none can tell thy capitals

O beautiful device!

Thy loveliness oppresses

All human thought and heart;

And none, O peace, O Syon,

Can sing thee as thou art!

New mansion of new people,

Whom God’s own love and light

Promote, increase, make holy,

Identify, unite!

Thou City of the Angels!

Thou City of the Lord!

Whose everlasting music

Is the glorious decachord!

And there the band of Prophets

United praise ascribes,

And there the twelvefold chorus

Of Israel’s ransomed tribes,

The lily-beds of virgins,

The roses’ martyr-glow,

The cohort of the Fathers

Who kept the Faith below.

And there the Sole-Begotten

Is Lord in regal state-

He, Judah’s mystic Lion,

He, Lamb Immaculate.

O fields that know no sorrow!

O state that fears no strife!

O princely bowers! O land of flowers!

O realm and home of Life!

Jerusalem, exulting

On that securest shore,

I hope thee, wish thee, sing thee,

And love thee evermore!

I ask not for my merit,

I seek not to deny

My merit is destruction,

A child of wrath am I;

But yet with Faith I venture

And Hope upon my way;

Far those perennial guerdons

I labor night and day.

The best and dearest Father,

Who made me and who saved,

Bore with me in defilement,

And from defilement laved,

When in His strength I struggle,

For very joy I leap,

When in my sin I totter,

I weep, or try to weep:

But grace, sweet grace celestial,

Shall all its love display,

And David’s Royal Fountain

Purge every sin away.

O mine, my golden Syon!

O lovelier far than gold,

With laurel-girt battalions,

And safe victorious fold!

O sweet and blessed Country,

Shall I ever see thy face?

O sweet and blessed Country,

Shall I ever win thy grace?

I have the hope within me

To comfort and to bless!

Shall I ever win the prize itself?

O tell me, tell me, Yes!

Exult, O dust and ashes!

The Lord shall be thy part;

His only, His for ever,

Thou shalt be, and thou art!

Exult, O dust and ashes!

The Lord shall be thy part;

His only, His for ever,

Thou shalt be, and thou art!