The Steps to the Choir: The Litany

Ye Litanies of ancient prayer,
Here, in our holy ground,
Ye rise a bright and crystal stair,
Which clouds and gloom surround ;
A crystal stair the purer Heavens ascending,
Fair as the seas and skies, at evening's portal blending.

Fair as when, from yon western door,
The showering sunbeams stream,
And restless motes, which sink and soar,
Shine in the silver gleam ;
Thus shapes of human woe within that shrine,
Come forth, and catch the light, mingling with hope divine.

It is a stair which climbs a throne,
Within a sacred tower,
The tower of truth to man made known, —
Mysterious love and power ;
The soul-sustaining truth, of One in Three,
And Three in One, enthron'd o'er the tumultuous sea.

It is a stair descending low,
'Mid shapes of mortal ill,
Into the deeps of sin and woe,
Deeps opening deeper still,
Till an upholding hand is stretch'd to raise
From the unfathom'd gulf of sin-deluding ways.

It is a stair where, evermore,
The Church's duteous feet,
On mysteries of Christian lore
Ascend the Mercy-seat;
Brought near in Christ, she dares to intercede,
And, in His robe arrayed, for fallen man to plead.

It is a stair by Love allow'd,
Where Heaven-born Prayers may pass ;
As when the sun looks on a cloud,
When suddenly the mass
Turns to a wondrous arch and glorious way,
Built for Heaven's messengers by the emerging ray.

Descending here with sky-lit lamp,
They enter palaces,
Or cells of sorrow, dark and damp,
With voice of sweet release,
Now break the prison bars with gentle might,
Now ope on sinful hearts kind mercy's cheering light.

There Prayers may pass ; — I deem them not,
As heathen poets told,
Forgetting man by man forgot,
Half-sighted, lame, and old,
Following fleet-footed Ate round the earth
To heal the woes she makes, not antedate their birth

But rather bright-hair'd Angel guests,
Fair children of the skies,—
And sure and swift on kind behests,
And healing embassies,
Quick as the light to th' Heaven of Heavens ye spring,
Then shake celestial air from your returning wing.

Thus when of old, beneath the skies,
Or holier aisles around,
The Church her moving Litanies
Like incense had unbound,
Away had Pestilence and Famine fled,
And Heresy had hid her bad embolden'd head.

And now where is her arm of strength,
When all th' unchristian rout
Are gather'd, and are set at length
Her Israel's camp about ?
'Tis not in sword, or banded multitude,
But in the hidden lamps, with heavenly oil endued.

Invok'd by David's son of old,
Thy Presence rose to sight ;
In courts of cedar and of gold
Was shed the Living Light ;
One more than David's son for us hath prayed,
Whose viewless presence fills His Church's mystic shade.