Hymn

Who shall commemorate all Thy chosen names Thou who art Sire at once and Son of man? Servant, friend, brother, bridegroom, husband, Lord, Priest, advocate, physician, teacher, guide, King, conqueror and master, world--adored! Owner of all things here, and almoner!-- Thou the Divine Protagonist of time, The everlasting sacrifice; the world's Eternal victim, Thou, and victor God! On high the light of all perfections, here The blessed shadow! Sun of righteousness, And star of wisdom lonely in the Heavens!-- The cloud of glory in life's wilderness, The splendour in the temple; Temple, rock, City of refuge! Branch and root, and vine! Tree, too, of Life, of knowledge! Almond tree First flowering from the wintry world of death!-- Thou too the olive, whence distils the oil Of inspiration for the elect anoint!-- Robe, sceptre, crown and shield! Eye, arm and head!-- Earth's corner stone and architect of Heaven!-- Fire, fountain, river! Sacrifice for sin, And Sin itself! The serpent of the saved, The Angel of redemption, and our God!-- Curse transessentiate into blessing! Man, Angel and Deity! The All in all, The one sole Being of the universe! The Lord of armies, and the Prince of peace, Whose humblest follower is a prince with God!-- Our fellow--heir and our inheritance, Witness and Judge, and ransom and reward, Originator, mediator, Fine! For Thou art all of these, and Thou alone!-- Knowledge The knowledge of God is the wisdom of man-- This is the end of Being, wisdom; this Of wisdom, action; and of action, rest; And of rest, bliss; that by experience sage Of good and ill, the diametric powers Which thwart the world, the thrice--born might discern That death divine alone can perfect both, The mediate and initiate; that between The Deity and nothing, nothing is. The Atlantean axis of the world And all the undescribed circumference, Where earth's thick breath thins off to blankest space Uniting with inanity, this truth Confess, the sun--sire and the death--world too, And undeflected spirit pure from Heaven, That He who makes, destroying, saves the whole. The Former and Re--Former of the world In wisdom's holy spirit all renew. To know this, is to read the runes of old, Wrought in the time--outlasting rock; to see Unblinded in the heart of light; to feel Keen through the soul, the same essential strain, Which vivifies the clear and fire--eyed stars, Still harping their serene and silvery spell In the perpetual presence of the skies, And of the world--cored calm, where silence sits In secret light all hidden; this to know-- Brings down the fiery unction from on high, The spiritual chrism of the sun, Which hallows and ordains the regnant soul-- Transmutes the splendid fluid of the frame Into a fountain of divine delight, And renovative nature;--shews us earth, One with the great galactic line of life Which parts the hemispheral palm of Heaven; This with all spheres of Being makes concord As at the first creation, in that peace, Premotional, preelemental, prime, Which is the hope of earth, the joy of Heaven, The choice of the elect, the grace of life, The blessing and the glory of our God. And--as the vesper hymn of time precedes The starry matins of Eternity, And daybreak of existence in the Heavens,-- To know this, is to know we shall depart Into the storm--surrounding calm on high, The sacred cirque, the all--central infinite Of that self blessedness wherein abides Our God, all kind, all loving, all beloved;-- To feel life one great ritual, and its laws, Writ in the vital rubric of the blood, Flow in obedience and flow out command, In sealike circulation; and be here Accepted as a gift by Him who gives An empire as an alms, nor counts it aught, So long as all His creatures joy in Him, The great Rejoicer of the Universe, Whom all the boundless spheres of Being bless.