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Our Father's home eternal,
O Christ, thou dost prepare
with many diverse mansions,
and each one passing fair:
they are the victor's guerdon
who, through the hard-won fight,
have followed in thy footsteps
and reign with thee in light.
Amid the happy number
the virgins' crown and queen,
the ever-Virgin Mother,
is first and foremost seen:
her one and only gladness,
that undefilèd one,
to gaze in adoration,
the Mother, on the Son.
There Adam leads the chorus,
and tunes the joyous strain
of all his myriad children
that follow in thy train:
victorious over sorrow,
the countless band to see,
destroyed through his transgression,
but raised to life through thee.
The patriarchs in their triumph
thy praises nobly sing,
of old their promised offspring,
and now their Victor-King:
the prophets harp their gladness
that, whom their strains foretold,
in manifested glory
they evermore behold.
And David calls to memory
his own especial grace
in such clear prophet-vision
to see thee face to face:
the apostolic cohort,
thy valiant and thine own,
as royal co-assessors
are nearest to thy throne.
Thy martyrs reign in glory
who triumphed as they fell,
and by a thousand tortures
defeated death and hell;
and every patient sufferer,
who sorrow dared contemn,
for each especial anguish
hath one especial gem.
The valiant-souled confessors
put on their meet array,
who bare the heat and burden
of many a weary day:
the scorners of life's pleasures,
their self-denial ceased,
sit down with thee and banquet
at thy eternal feast.
The virgins walk in beauty
amidst their lily-bowers,
the coronals assuming
of never-ending flowers;
and innocents sport gaily
through all the courts of light,
to whom thou gav'st the guerdon
before they fought the fight.
The soldiers of thine army,
their earthly struggles o'er,
with joy put off the armor
that they shall need no more:
for these, and all that battled
beneath their Monarch's eyes,
the harder was the conflict
the brighter is the prize.
The penitent, attaining
full pardon in thy sight,
leave off the vest of sackcloth
and don the robe of white:
the bondsman and the noble,
the peasant and the king,
all gird one glorious Monarch
in one eternal ring.