Newman Reader - Verses on Various Occasions

176. St. Michael

{321} (A Hymn.)

THOU champion high

Of Heaven's imperial Bride,

For ever waiting on her eye,

Before her onward path, and at her side,

In war her guard secure, by night her ready guide!

To thee was given,

When those false angels rose

Against the Majesty of Heaven,

To hurl them down the steep, and on them close

The prison where they roam in hopeless unrepose.

Thee, Michael, thee,

When sight and breathing fail,

The disembodied soul shall see;

The pardon'd soul with solemn joy shall hail,

When holiest rites are spent, and tears no more avail.

{322}
And thou, at last,

When Time itself must die,

Shalt sound that dread and piercing blast,

To wake the dead, and rend the vaulted sky,

And summon all to meet the Omniscient Judge on high.

The Oratory.
1862.