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While sounds the Trisagion—Holy, thrice Holy!

I have Paradise dreams of a band with palm-branches,

Whose wavings give back their gold harps' resonances,

And a jewelled-walled city, where walketh in splendour

Each one who his life for God's truth did surrender.

Who would weep their death-doom, if such bliss we inherit,

When the veil of the human falls off from the spirit?

The Christian may shrink from the last scenes of trial,

And the woes yet unknown of each mystical vial;

But the hosts of Jehovah will gather beside him,

The rainbow-crowned angel stoop downward to guide him;

And to him, who as hero and martyr hath striven,

Will the Crown, and the Throne, and the Palm-branch be given.

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WHEREFORE wail you for the harp? Is it broken?

Have the bold hands that once struck it weaker grown?

Can false words, by false traitors spoken,

Blight a cause which we know is God's own?

No coward hearts are with us that would falter,

Tho' a thousand tyrants strove to crush us low;