Rain down, ye heav’ns, eternal bliss!
The Cherub-cloud today
Bears JESUS where His Father is,
Along the starry way!
Sundered of old were Heaven and Earth:
But Thou, Incarnate King!
Hast made them one by that Thy Birth,
And this Thy triumphing.
‘Thy victor-raiment, wherefore red?
What mean the marks of pain
That print Thy form?’—the Angels said,
The ascending Monarch’s train.
219
Very Oblation, by the scourges torn!
Nailed to the bitter Cross, O Virgin-born!
As once the Prophet from the monster’s maw,
So now Thy love, accomplishing the Law,
Adam from utter death to perfect Life would draw.
Vanities earthly22221st ed.: Things of the earth in earth will we lay,
Ashes with ashes, the dust with the clay:
Lift up the heart, and the eye, and the love,
Lift up thyself, to the regions above:
Since the Immortal hath entered of late,
Mortals may pass at the heavenly gate.
220
Stand we on Olivet: mark Him ascend,
Whose is the glory and might without end;
There, with His own ones, the Giver of Good
Blessing them once more, a little while stood.
“Nothing can part us,—nor distance, nor foes,
Lo! I am for you, and who can oppose?”
Hymns of the Eastern Church, 1866
John M. Neale's life is a study in contrasts: born into an evangelical home, he had sympathies toward Rome; in perpetual ill health, he was incredibly productive; of scholarly temperament, he devoted much time to improving social conditions in his area; often ignored or despised by his contemporaries, he is lauded today for his contributions to the church and hymnody. Neale's gifts came to expression early–he won the Seatonian prize for religious poetry eleven times while a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, England. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1842, but ill health and his strong support of the Oxford Movement kept him from ordinary parish ministry. So Neale spent the years between 1846 and 1866 as a warden of Sackvi… Go to person page >
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