For Ascension Day
I
Ἰησοῦς ὁ ζωοδότης
Jesus, Lord of Life eternal,
Taking those he loved the best,
Stood upon the Mount of Olives,
And his own the last time blest.
Then though he had never left it,
Sought again his Father’s breast.
Knit is now our flesh to Godhead,
Knit in everlasting bands:
Call the world to highest festal:
Floods and oceans, clap your hands:
Angels, raise the song of triumph:
Make response, ye distant lands.
Loosing death with all its terrors,
Thou ascendest up on high;
And to mortals, now immortal,
Gavest immortality,
As thine own disciples saw thee
Mounting Victor to the sky.
II
Φωτεινήσε, φῶς
Wafting Him up on high,
The glorious cloud receives
The Lord of Immortality,
And earth the Victor leaves:
The heavenly people raise the strain,
The apostles pour the hymn again—
God of our fathers, thou art blest!
Ye faithful, tell your joys!
All hearts with gladness bound,
God is gone up with a merry noise,
The Lord with the trumpet’s sound!
To him we cry, by woes once tried,
Now glorious at the Father’s side—
God of our fathers, thou art blest!
Zealous for God of yore,
With zeal still Moses burns:
Come, heavenly spirits, and adore
The Victor who returns:
Rise, angel legions, rise and sing
The ancient hymn to greet the King—
God of our fathers, thou art blest!
III
Ἐπάρατε πυλάς
Exalt, exalt, the heavenly gates,
Ye chiefs of mighty name,
The Lord and King of all things waits,
Enrobed in earthly frame.
So to the higher seats they cry,
The humbler legions of the sky.
For Adam’s sake, by serpent guile
Distressed, deceived, o’erthrown,
Thou left’st thy native home awhile,
Thou left’st the Father’s throne:
Now he is decked afresh with grace,
Thou seek’st once more the heavenly place.
Glad festal keeps the earth to-day,
Glad festal heaven is keeping:
The ascension-pomp in bright array,
Goes proudly skyward sweeping:
The Lord the mighty deed hath done,
And joined the severed into one.
IV
Τὸν ἐν δυσὶ ταῖς
Of twofold natures, Christ, the Giver
Of immortality and love,
Ascendeth to the Father’s glory,
Ascendeth to the throne above:
Wherefore he, this glorious morn,
Be by all adored:
Thou that liftest up our horn,
Holy art thou, Lord!
Slaves are set free, and captives ransomed:
The nature that he made at first
He now presenteth to the Father,
The chains of her damnation burst:
This the cause that he was born,
Adam’s race restored:
Thou that liftest up our horn,
Holy art thou, Lord!
Emptied awhile of all his brightness,
He entered thus the glorious fight;
O’erthrew the foe, mankind exalted
Far above every power and might:
Therefore bare he pains and scorn,
Calvary’s heart-blood poured:
Thou that liftest up our horn,
Holy art thou, Lord!
V
Ἀνέστης τριήμερος
After three days Thou didst rise
Visible to mortal eyes:
First the Eleven worshiped thee,—
Then the rest in Galilee:
Then a cloud in glory bore
Thee to thine own native shore.
Boldly David poured the strain—
God ascends to heaven again:
With the trumpet’s pealing note
Alleluias round him float,
As he now, by hard-won right,
Seeks the fount of purest light.
Crime on crime, and grief on grief,
Left the world without relief:
Now that aged, languid race
God hath quickened by his grace:
As thy going up we see,
Glory to thy glory be.
Bernhard Pick, Hymns and Poetry of the Eastern Church (New York; Cincinnati: Eaton & Mains; Jennings & Graham, 1908), 156–160.
