37. The Sacred Heart

Unchanging and Unchangeable, before angelic eyes.
The Vision of the Godhead in its tranquil beauty
lies;
And, like a city lighted up all gloriously within,
Its countless lustres glance and gleam, and sweetest
worship win.
On the Unbegotten Father, awful well-spring of the
Three,
On the Sole Begotten Son's coequal Majesty.
On Him eternally breathed forth from Father and
from Son,
The spirits gaze with fixed amaze, and unreckoned
ages run.
Myriad, myriad angels raise
Happy hymns of wondering praise,
Ever through eternal days,
Before the Holy Trinity,
One Undivided Three!

Still the Fountain of the Godhead giveth forth
eternal being:
Still begetting, unbegotten, still His own perfection
seeing,
Still limiting His own loved Self with His dear
coequal Spirit,
No change comes o'er that blissful Life, no shadow
passeth near it.
And beautiful dr^d Attributes, all manifold and
bright,
Now thousands seem, now lose themselves in one
self-living light;
And far in that deep Life of God, in harmony com-
plete,
Ijike crowned kings, all opposite perfections take
their seat.
Myriad, myriad angels raise
Happy hymns of wondering praise,
Ever through eternal days.
Before the Holy Trinity,
One Undivided Three I

And in that ungrowing vision nothing deepens,
nothing brightens.
But the living Life of God perpetually lightens;
And created life is nothing but a radiant shadow
fleeing
From the unapproached lustres of that Unbegin-
ning Being;
Spirits wise and deep have watched that everlast
ing Ocean,
And never o'er its lucid field hath rippled fauites
motion;
In glory undistinguished never have the Three
seemed One,
Nor ever in divided streams the Single Essence
run.
Myriad, myriad angels raise
Happy hymns of wondering praise,
Ever through eternal days,
Before the Holy Trinity,
One Undivided Three!

There reigns the Eternal Father, in His lone pre-
rogatives.
And, in the Father's Mind, the Son, all self-exist-
ing, lives.
With Him, their mutual Jubilee, that deepest depth
of love,
Lifegiving Life of two-fold source, the many-gifted
Dove!
O Bountiful! O Beautiful! can Power or Wisdom
add
Fresh features to a life, so munificent and glad?
Can even uncreated Love, ye angels! give a hue
Which can ever make the Unchanging and Un-
changeable look new?
Myriad, myriad angels raise
Happy hymns of wondering praise,
Ever through eternal days,
Before the Holy Trinity,
One Undivided Three!

The Mercy of the Merciful is equal to Their INIight,
As wondrous as Their Love, and as Their Wisdom
bright!
As They, who out of nothing called creation at the
first,
In everlasting purposes Their own design had
nursed, —
As They, who in Their solitude, Three Persons,
once abode,
Vouchsafed of Their abundance to become crea-
tion's God, —
What They owed not to Themselves They stooped
to owe to man,
And pledged Their glory to Him, in an unimagi-
nable plan.
Myriad, myriad angels raise
Happy hymns of wondering praise,
Ever through eternal days.
Before the Holy Trinity,
One Undivided Three!

See! deep within the glowing depth of that Eter-
nal Light,
What change hath come, what vision new trans-
ports angelic sight?
A creature can it be, in uncreated bliss?
A novelty in God? Oh what nameless thing is
this?
The beauty of the Father's power is o'er it brightly
shed,
Tlic sweetness of the Spirit's Love is unction on its
head;
In the wisdom of the Son it i:)lays its wondrous
part,
While it lives the loving life of a real Human
Heart!
Myriad, myriad angels raise
Happy hymns of wondering praise,
Ever through eternal days,
Before the Holy Trinity,
One Undivided Three!

A Heart that hath a INIother, and a treasure of red
blood,
A Heart that man can pray to, and feed upon for
food!
In the brightness of the Godhead is its marvellous
abode,
A change in the Unchanging, creation touching
God!
Ye spirits blest, in endless rest, who on that Vision
gaze,
Salute the Sacred Heart with all your worshipful
amaze,
And adore, while with ecstatic skill the Three in
One ye scan.
The Mercy that hath planted there that blessed
Heart of Man!
Myriad, myriad angels raise
Happy hymns of wondering praise,
Ever through eternal days,
Before the Holy Trinity,
One Undivided Three!

All tranquilly, all tranquilly, doth that Blissful
Vision last.
And Its brightness o'er immortalized creation will it
cast;
Ungrowing and unfading, Its pure Essence doth it
keep,
In the deepest of those depths where all are infi-
nitely deep;
Unchanging and unchangeable as It hath ever
been,
As It was before that Human Heart was there by
angels seen,
So is it at this very hour, so will it ever be,
With that Human Heart within It, beating hot
with love of me!
Myriad, myriad angels raise
Happy hymns of wondering praise,
Ever through eternal days,
Before the Holy Trinity,
One Undivided Three
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