Canon for Ascension Day

Ode I

After three days Thou didst rise
Visible to mortal eyes:
First the Eleven worshipped Thee,—
Then the rest in Galilee:
Then a cloud in glory bore
Thee to Thine own native shore.

Boldly David pour'd the strain:
God ascends to Heav’n again:
With the trumpet's pealing note
Alleluias round Him float;
As He now, by hard-won right,
Seeks the Fount of purest Light!

Crime on crime, and grief on grief,
Left the world without relief:
Now that aged, languid race,
God hath quickened by His grace:
As Thy going up we see,
Glory to Thy Glory be!

Catavasia

Darkness and awe, when Sinai's top he trod,
Taught him of faltering tongue the Law of God:
The mist was scattered from his spirit's eye,
He prais’d and hymn’d the Maker of the sky,
When He That is and was and shall be, passed by.

Ode III

"Exalt, exalt, the Heavenly Gates,
Ye chiefs of mighty name!
The Lord and King of all things waits,
Enrob’d in earthly frame."
So to the higher seats they cry,
The humbler legions of the sky.

For Adam’s sake, by Serpent-guile
Distress’d, deceiv’d, o’erthrown,
Thou left’st Thy native Home awhile,
Thou left’st the Father’s Throne:
Now he is deck’d afresh with grace,
Thou seek’st once more the Heavenly place.

Glad festal keeps the earth to-day,
Glad festal Heav’n is keeping:
The Ascension-pomp, in bright array,
Goes proudly sky-ward sweeping:
The Lord the mighty deed hath done,
And join’d the severed into one.

Catavasia

Her fetters of the barren womb it rent,
It crush’d the malice of the insolent,
The cry of her—the prophetess, who brought
A contrite spirit, and a humble thought
To Him, Who bids His Throne by earnest prayer be sought.

Ode IV

Jesus, Lord of Life Eternal,
Taking those He lov’d the best,
Stood upon the Mount of Olives,
And His Own the last time blest:
Then, though He had never left it,
Sought again his Father's breast.

Knit is now our flesh to Godhead,
Knit in everlasting bands:
Call the world to highest festal:
Floods and oceans, clap your hands:
Angels, raise the song of triumph!
Make response, ye distant lands

Loosing Death with all its terrors
Thou ascended’st up on high;
And to mortals, now Immortal,
Gavest immortality:
As Thine own Disciples saw Thee
Mounting victor to the sky

Catavasia

Monarch of monarchs, Sole of Sole, to Thee,
Word, Glorious in Thy Father's Majesty,
And sending Thy co-equal Spirit bright
To teach, to comfort, and to guide aright,
Thine own Apostles sang: All glory to Thy might!

Ode V

Now that Death by death hath found his ending,
Thou dost call to Thee Thy loved Eleven;
And from holy Olivet ascending
On a cloud art carried up to Heaven.

O that wondrous Birth! that wondrous Rising!
That more wondrous mounting to the sky!
So Elias, earthly things despising,
In a fiery chariot went on high.

Parted from Him, still they watch’d His going:
'Why stand gazing thus?' the Angel said:
'This same Jesus, all His glory showing,
Shall return to judge the quick and dead.'

Catavasia

Quicken’d and cleans’d, receive remission new
In the descending Spirit's fiery dew,
Sons of the Church, and light-formed generation!
For lo! the law goes forth from Sion's nation,
The cloven tongues of flame the Paraclete's salvation!

Ode VI

Rain down, ye heav'ns, eternal bliss!
The Cherub-cloud to-day
Bears Jesus where His Father is,
Along the starry way!

Sunder’d of old were Heaven and Earth:
But Thou, Incarnate King!
Hast made them one by that Thy Birth,
And this Thy triumphing.

'Thy victor-raiment, wherefore red?
What mean the marks of pain
That print Thy form?'—the Angels said,
The ascending Monarch's train.

Catavasia

Very Oblation, by the scourges torn!
Nailed to the bitter Cross, O Virgin-born!
As once the Prophet from the monster's maw,
So now Thy love, accomplishing the Law,
Adam from utter death to perfect Life would draw.

Oicos

Vanities earthly in earth will we lay,
Ashes with ashes, the dust with the clay:
Lift up the heart, and the eye, and the love,
Lift up thyself, to the regions above:
Since the Immortal hath entered of late,
Mortals may pass at the heavenly gate.

Stand we on Olivet: mark Him ascend,
Whose is the glory and might without end;
There, with His own ones, the Giver of Good
Blessing them once more, a little while stood.
"Nothing can part us,—nor distance, nor foes,
Lo! I am for you, and who can oppose?"

Ode VII

Wafting Him up on high,
The glorious cloud receives
The Lord of Immortality,
And earth the Victor leaves:
The Heavenly People raise the strain,
The Apostles pour the hymn again;—
God of our Fathers, Thou art blest!

Ye faithful, tell your joys!
All hearts with gladness bound!
God is gone up with a merry noise,—
The Lord with the trumpet's sound!
To Him we cry, by woes once tried,
Now glorious at the Father's side,—
God of our Fathers, Thou art blest!

Zealous for God of yore,
With zeal still Moses burns:
"Come, Heavenly Spirits, and adore
The Victor Who returns;
Rise, Angel legions, rise and sing
The ancient hymn to greet the King,—
God of our Fathers, Thou art blest!"

Catavasia

Join’d with the trumpet-peal, the din and shout,
Cornet, flute, sackbut, dulcimer rang out,
And bade adore the golden deity:
The Spirit's gentler voice gives praise to Thee,
O co-eternal One—O consubstantial Three!

Ode VIII

Hirmos. "Him of the Father."

Of twofold natures, Christ, the Giver
Of immortality and love,
Ascendeth to the Father's glory,
Ascendeth to the Throne above:
Wherefore He, this glorious morn,
Be by all ador'd:
Thou That liftest up our horn,
Holy art Thou, Lord!

Slaves are set free, and captives ransom’d:
The Nature that He made at first
He now presenteth to the Father,
The chains of her damnation burst:
This the cause that He was born,
Adam's race restor’d:
Thou That liftest up our horn,
Holy art Thou, Lord!

Emptied awhile of all His brightness,
He enter’d thus the glorious fight;
O’erthrew the foe, mankind exalted
Far above every Pow’r and Might:
Therefore bare He pains and scorn,
Calvary's heart-blood pour’d:—
Thou That liftest up our horn,
Holy art Thou, Lord!

Catavasia

Praising the Lord they stood, the Martyr Three,
Untouch’d amidst the fire, and wholly free:
With them associate, let the world's wide frame
To Him Whose healing dew restrain’d the flame,
Send up the hymn of praise, and magnify His Name!

Ode IX

Holy gift, surpassing comprehension!
Wond’rous mystery of each fiery tongue!
Christ made good His Promise in Ascension:
O’er the Twelve the cloven flames have hung!

Spake the Lord, or ere He left the Eleven:
"Here in Salem wait the Gift I send:
Till the Paraclete come down from Heaven:
Everlasting Guide and Guard and Friend."

O that shame, now ended in that glory!
Pain untold, now lost in joy unknown!
Tell it out with praise, the whole glad story,
Human nature at the Father's Throne!

Catavasia

Declare, ye Angel Bands that dwell on high,
How saw ye Him, the Victor, drawing nigh?
What strange new visions burst upon your sight?
One in the form of Man, That claims by right
The very throne of God, the unapproached Light!

Exaposteilarion

Eternal! After Thine own will
Thou born in time would’st be:
After the self-same counsel still
Was Thine Epiphany:
Thou in our flesh didst yield Thy breath,
Immortal God, for man:
Thou by Thy death didst conquer Death,
Through Thine Almighty plan:
Thou, rising Victor to the sky,
Fill’st Heav’n and earth above
And send’st the Promise from on high,
The Spirit of Thy love!