Hail the much remembered Day!

Hail the much remembered Day!
Night from morning flies away,
Life the chains of death hath burst:
Gladness, welcome! grief, begone!
Greater glory draweth on
Than confusion at the first.
Flies the shadowy from the true:
Flies the ancient from the new:
Comfort hath each tear dispersed.

Hail our Pascha, That wast dead!
What preceded in the Head
That each member hopes to gain;
Christ, our newer Pascha now,
Late in death content to bow
When the spotless Lamb was slain.

Christ the prey hath here unbound
From the foe that girt us round:
Tale, in Samson's prowess found
When the lion-form he slew:
David, in His Father's cause,
From the Lion's hungry jaws
And the bear's devouring paws
Hath set free His flock anew.

Samson thousands slew by dying:
Christ, true Samson, typifying,
Who by death o'ercame His foes:
Samson, by interpretation,
Is their sunlight: Our Salvation
Thus hath brought illumination
To the Elect on whom He rose.

From the Cross's pole of glory
Flows the must of ancient story
In the Church's wine-vat stored:
From the press, now trodden duly,
Gentile first-fruits gathered newly
Drink the precious liquor poured.

Sackcloth, worn with foul abuses,
Passes on to royal uses;
Grace in that garb at length we see,
The Flesh hath conquered misery.
They, by whom their monarch perished
Lost the kingdom, that they cherished,
And for a sign and wonder Cain
Is set who never shall be slain.

Reprobated and rejected
Was this Stone that, now elected,
For a Trophy stands erected
And a precious Cornerstone:
Sin's, not Nature's, termination,
He creates a new Creation,
And Himself their colligation,
Binds two peoples into one.

Give we glory to the Head,
O'er the members love be shed!