Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord--and it is also the anniversary of the death of John Mason Neale, the great Anglican hymnist and translator. He died in 1866. He translated this Greek hymn of St. Cosmas, the Melodist for the Feast of the Transfiguration. St. Cosmas, the Melodist was the bishop of Maiuma in the eighth century.
The choirs of ransomed Israel,
The Red Sea’s passage o’er,
Uprais’d the
hymn of triumph
Upon the further shore:
And shouted, as the foeman
Was
whelmed beneath the sea,—
‘Sing we to Judah’s Saviour,
For glorified is
He!’
Amongst His Twelve Apostles
CHRIST spake the Words of Life,
And showed
a realm of beauty
Beyond a world of strife:
‘When all My FATHER’s
glory
Shall shine expressed in Me,
Then praise Him, then exalt Him,
For
magnified is He!’
Upon the Mount of Tabor
The promise was made good;
When, baring all the
Godhead,
In light itself He stood:
And they, in awe beholding,
The
Apostolic Three,
Sang out to GOD their Saviour,
For magnified was
He!
In days of old, on Sinai,
The LORD of Sabaoth came,
In majesty of
terror,
In thunder-cloud and flame:
On Tabor, with the glory
Of
sunniest light for vest,
The excellence of beauty
In JESUS was
expressed.
All hours and days inclined there,
And did Thee worship meet,
The sun
himself adored Thee,
And bowed him at Thy feet:
While Moses and
Elias,
Upon the Holy Mount,
The co-eternal glory
Of CHRIST our GOD
recount.
O holy, wonderous Vision!
But what, when this life past,
The beauty of
Mount Tabor
Shall end in Heav’n at last?
But what, when all the
glory
Of uncreated light
Shall be the promised guerdon
Of them that win
the fight?
Image credit: Wikipedia commons, under Creative Commons Attribution license.
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