W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895.

The Angels at the Sepulchre

Thomas Toke Lynch (1818–1871)

THE GLORY of God from the way of the East

Shines into the sepulchre, slumber has ceased;

The stone, like a cloud, has moved lightly away,

And on it there sits a strong angel of day.

Seize and bind him, ye soldiers,—he sits on the stone:

Not before him a bar, but beneath him a throne;

Bedazzled and smit with his terrible light,

They tremble, they fly, and they fall in their flight.

O, ring, bells of heaven; ye throngs of the blest,

Again hallelujahs may swell from your breast;

Let surges of music, like summer seas bright,

Re-ëcho and roll through the heavenly height.

They hated and sent Him in darkness to dwell

Beneath the great mountains and billows of hell;

But He lighted the caverns of ancient despair,

And with a new chain bound the fiend in his lair.

He’s at liberty set who so sorely was bruised;

He triumphs to-day whom the people refused:

Of all that have loved Him he’ll comfort the soul,

Now his own wounded heart is for ever made whole.

And, O, ye kind angels, who grieved for your song,

Sing anew, for the right has prevailed o’er the wrong;

The best of good-will shines through hatred and pain

And glory and peace have arisen to reign.