Hymns of the Eastern Church

The dewy freshness that the furnace flings

Works out a wondrous type of future things:

Nor did the flame the Holy Three consume,

Nor did the Godhead’s fire thy frame entomb,

Thou, on Whose bosom hung the WORD:

Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,

“Let all Creation bless the LORD,

And magnify His Name for ever!”

Babel’s proud daughter once led David’s race

From Sion, to their exile’s woful place:

Babel now bids her wise men, gifts in hand,

Before King David’s Royal Daughter stand,

The Mother of the Incarnate Word:

Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,

“Let all Creation bless the LORD,

And magnify His Name for ever!”

From music grief held back the exile’s hand:

How sing the LORD’s song in an alien land?

But Babel’s exile here is done away,

And Bethlehem’s harmony this glorious day

By Thee, Incarnate GOD, restored:

Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,

“Let all Creation bless the LORD,

And magnify His Name for ever!”

Of old victorious Babel bore away,

The spoils of Royal Sion and her prey:

But Babel’s treasure now, and Babel’s kings,

CHRIST, by the guiding star, to Sion brings.

There have they knelt, and there adored:

Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,

“Let all Creation bless the LORD,

And magnify His Name for ever!”