Glory to God! We were in bit­ter need,
We sat in dark­ness long and wea­ry days;
But now our light is come, the Light in­deed,
And we may rise and shine with kin­dred rays;
The God-Man comes down so we can now as­cend,
The Guilt­less drinks guilt’s woes to work their end.

O mys­tic gift of God Om­ni­po­tent!
O hap­pi­ness for man, most deep, most dear!
This is no theme for sub­tle ar­gu­ment,
No lore of earth hath lot or por­tion here;
That the Great God should so abas­èd be—
We speak, we can­not search, the mys­te­ry.

The dew of God is on the parch­èd fleece,
The sap­less rod blooms with im­mor­tal flow­ers,
The vir­gin bears a Son, our ut­ter peace,
Nor knows pol­lu­tion in her tra­vail’s hours;
We can­not speak that birth, but we con­fess
Most great the mys­te­ry of god­li­ness.

Though it may chance the ship­men toil and row,
With count­less wrecks far strewn on ei­ther hand,
They see a star above the wa­ters glow,
There is an ark which sights the plea­sant land;
There is a door of life set wide, which none
Can op­en to lorn souls, can shut, save One.

O not with ob­ser­va­tion came He then
Into our world, but soon the day shall be
When with great glo­ry He shall come again
With all His saints, and ev­ery eye shall see
Him whom they pierc­èd. When we meet Thee thus
Let there be mer­cy, O our God, on us.