One God! one Majesty!
There is no God but Thee!
Unbounded, unextended Unity!

Awful in unity,
O God! we worship Thee
More simply one, because supremely Three!

Dread, unbeginning One!
Single, yet not alone,
Creation hath not set Thee on a higher throne.

Unfathomable Sea!
All life is out of Thee,
And Thy life is Thy blissful Unity.

All things that from Thee run,
All works that Thou hast done,
Thou didst in honour of Thy being One.

And by Thy being One,
Ever by that alone,
Couldst Thou do, and doest, what Thou hast done.

We from Thy oneness come,
Beyond it cannot roam,
And in Thy oneness find our one eternal home.

Blest be Thy Unity!
All joys are one to me,—
The joy that there can be no other God than Thee!

Full of glory, full of wonders,
   Majesty Divine!
Mid Thine everlasting thunders
   How Thy lightnings shine!
Shoreless Ocean! who shall sound Thee?
Thine own eternity is round Thee,
   Majesty Divine!

Timeless, spaceless, single, lonely,
   Yet sublimely Three,
Thou art grandly, always, only
   God in Unity!
Lone in grandeur, lone in glory,
Who shall tell Thy wondrous story,
   Awful Trinity?

Speechlessly, without beginning,
   Sun that never rose!
Vast, adorable, and winning,
   Day that hath no close!
Bliss from Thine own glory tasting,
Everliving, everlasting,
   Life that never grows!

Thine own Self for ever filling
   With self-kindled flame,
In Thyself Thou art distilling
   Unctions without name!
Without worshipping of creatures
Without veiling of Thy features,
   God always the same!

In Thy praise of Self untiring
   Thy perfections shine;
Self-sufficient, self-admiring,
   Such life must be Thine;
Glorifying Self, yet blameless
With a sanctity all shameless
   It is so divine!

’Mid Thine uncreated morning,
   Like a trembling star
I behold creation’s dawning
   Glimmering from afar;
Nothing giving, nothing taking,
Nothing changing, nothing breaking,
   Waiting at time’s bar!

I with life and love diurnal
   See myself in Thee,
All embalmed in love eternal,
   Floating in Thy sea:
’Mid Thine uncreated whiteness
I behold Thy glory’s brightness
   Feed itself on me.

Splendours upon splendours beaming
   Change and intertwine;
Glories over glories streaming
   All translucent shine!
Blessings, praises adorations
Greet Thee from the trembling nations
   Majesty Divine!

The thought of God, the thought of Thee,
Who liest in my heart,
And yet beyond imagined space
Outstretched and present art,

The thought of Thee, above, below,
Around me and within,
Is more to me than health and wealth,
Or love of kith and kin.

The thought of God is like the tree
Beneath whose shade I lie,
And watch the fleets of snowy clouds
Sail o’er the silent sky.

’Tis like that soft invading light,
Which in all darkness shines,
The thread that through life’s sombre web
In golden pattern twines.

It is a thought which ever makes
Life’s sweetest smiles from tears,
And is a daybreak to our hopes,
A sunset to our fears;

One while it bids the tears to flow,
Then wipes them from the eyes,
Most often fills our souls with joy,
And always sanctifies.

Within a thought so great, our souls
Little and modest grow,
And, by its vastness awed, we learn
The art of walking slow.

The wild flower on the messy ground
Scarce bends its pliant form,
When overhead the autumnal wood
Is thundering like a storm.

So is it with our humbled souls
Down in the thought of God,
Scarce conscious in their sober peace
Of the wild storms abroad.

To think of Thee is almost prayer,
And is outspoken praise;
And pain can even passive thoughts
To actual worship raise.

O Lord! I live always in pain,
My life’s sad undersong,
Pain in itself not hard to bear,
But hard to bear so long.

Little sometimes weighs more than much,
When it has no relief;
A joyless life is worse to bear
Than one of active grief.

And yet, O Lord! a suffering life
One grand ascent may dare;
Penance, not self-imposed, can make
The whole of life a prayer.

All murmurs lie inside Thy Will
Which are to Thee addressed;
To suffer for Thee is our work,
To think of Thee our rest.

O Blessed Trinity!
Thy children dare to lift their hearts to Thee,
And bless Thy triple Majesty!
Holy Trinity!
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

O Blessed Trinity!
Holy, unfathomable, infinite,
Thou art all Life and Love and Light.
Holy Trinity!
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

O Blessed Trinity!
God of a thousand attributes! we see
That there is no one good but Thee.
Holy Trinity!
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

O Blessed Trinity!
In our astonished reverence we confess
Thine uncreated loveliness.
Holy Trinity!
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

O Blessed Trinity!
O simplest Majesty! O Three in One!
Thou art for ever God alone.
Holy Trinity!
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

O Blessed Trinityl
The Fountain of the Godhead, in repose,
For ever rests, for ever flows.
Holy Trinityl
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

O Blessed Trinity!
O Unbegotten Father! give us tears
To quench our love, to calm our fears.
Holy Trinityl
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

O Blessed Trinity!
Bright Son! who art the Father’s mind displayed,
Thou art begotten and not made.
Holy Trinity!
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

O Blessed Trinity!
Coequal Spirit! wondrous Paraclete!
By Thee the Godhead is complete.
Holy Trinity!
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

O Blessed Trinity!
We praise Thee, bless Thee, worship Thee as one.
Yet Three are on the single Throne.
Holy Trinity!
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

O Blessed Trinity!
In the deep darkness of prayer’s stillest night
We worship Thee blinded with light.
Holy Trinity!
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

O Blessed Trinity!
Oh would that we could die of love for Thee,
Incomparable Trinity!
Holy Trinity!
Blessed Equal Three,
One God, we praise Thee.

My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobey’d,
I struck him, and dismiss’d
With hard words and unkiss’d,
—His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach,
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells,
And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
To comfort his sad heart.
So when that night I pray’d
To God, I wept, and said:
Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath,
Not vexing Thee in death,
And Thou rememberest of what toys
We made our joys,
How weakly understood
Thy great commanded good,
Then, fatherly not less
Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,
Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
‘I will be sorry for their childishness.’

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!