HE IS RISEN! -- How has his prey
From very death been snatched away?
How the awful black gates vanquished,
Safe Himself once more Who languished
In others' power?
By the Eternal I swear
He has raised Him from the infernal.
Yes, HE IS RISEN. That hallowéd head
No longer lies wrapped in the cloth of the dead.
HE IS SURELY RISEN. At the side of the tomb
Lies the overturned door of the solitary room.
Like the valorous champion drunk after strife
The LORD has awaked to omnipotent life;
As a pilgrim, arrived at midway of his road
And reposed for short sleep in the neighboring wood,
Returned to his senses, leaps up from his bed
And jauntily shakes a dry leaf from his head
Which has soft floated down from an o'erhanging bough
And as light as an eider-down pauses there now,
So that marble sepulchral, its usefulness done,
Which had covered and weighed down the excavate stone,
A slight waft of omnipotence tosse'd away,
When the soul (to the Godhead returned and its clay,
From the silence of death in the dusty valley),
To the Body commanded: Rise, I am with thee.
In the realm of the faithful asleep in the LORD,
A voice like a trumpet re-echoed the word:
"The LORD has unclosed the impassable gate,
The LORD, the immanuel, GOD incarnate!
Ye sleepers in waiting delayed in this gloom,
Your exile is ended, the Redeemer is come!"
Who could have ascended to Life till He
Had 'captive led captivity'?
He, He went down to the mute infernal
To bring the old saints to the kingdom supernal --
For ages the Sighed-for, the Dread of the Foe,
The promiséd Balm for humanity's woe.
To the wondering Seers of old,
(Who the load of the future foretold,
As a father to children intent
Will narrate a past wondrous event),
HE appeared -- what Jehovah had sworn
In their words to a world dark and lorn --
The fair Sun of a glorious morn,
When Haggai's pledged warnings out-rang
The DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS to come;
When Esaias as daringly sang;
When Daniel (clear reading the doom
Of the years unborn, to his gaze
Enlightened with still brighter rays)
Remembered the numberéd days.
'Twas the twilight of morning, all trembling with fears
And their faces bedewed with love's bitter tears,
Mary Magdalen stood to lament and complain
With the other two Marys the death of the slain,
When the firm ground of Zion's declivity shakes,
The grim guard of dishonor sore terrified quakes
And death-struck6 an evidence makes;
And reposing upon the great monument-stone
Was a youth and a stranger now sitting alone --
His face was like lightning, his vesture of snow --
To the mourning enquirer he said soft and low:
"O sorrowful woman, why still weepest thou?
Whom thou seekest is risen. He is not here now."
Done then with every mourning strain,
Off every badge of inward pain,
Don splendor richer than of old,
Change sad purple now to gold;
Holy priest in snowy stole
Issue to your heavenly role
Midst the brilliant lights, and say:
THE LORD IS RISEN, is risen to-day!
From her bright altar1 comes forth a voice:
Heavenly Lady, rejoice, and rejoice!
God for whom thou wast the merited nest
When HE took on HIM humanity's vest,
HE has arisen, fulfilling HIS word;
Pray for us thou, for thy prayers the LORD
From eternity willed to be heard.
Men and brethren, up and sing!
All the world is triumphing;
Holy rites to-day employ
Only words of solemn joy;
Fairest of skies the Easter dawns,
The fairest grace the Easter lawns,
The babies smile in fairest dress
Each mother's strife in loveliness.
Be the spread of the richest tmboastful to-day;
Every Christian man's table in giftful array;
Wasted treasure replevined from pride and from show
To the home of the lowly in brotherhood flow;
With diffusive abundance necessity pile,
Till every pinched board of grim poverty smile.
But far the reckless roaring cry
Of stormy revelry --
All unlike the blessed mirth,
All unlike the 'peace on earth'
With the heavenly likeness sealed
Of the joys to be revealed.
For these fairer dawn the rays
Of the sacred holidays.
But, alas, what will befall
The fool who scorns the heavenly call,
Whose rebel steps turn to the trail
That wildly wanders down to hell?
He who shall in his LORD confide
Shall rise again with HIM who died.
