Let this last draught, my mingling and my choice,
With blithesome heart be quaffed, and joyful voice,
A solemn greeting to the rising morn!
[A sound of bells is heard, and distant quire-singing.
Quire of Angels.
Christ is arisen!
Joy be to mortal man,
Whom, since the world began,
Evils inherited,
By his sins merited,
Through his veins creeping,
Sin-bound are keeping.
Faust.
What sweet soft peals, what notes, so clear and pure,
Draw from my lips the glass perforce away?
Thus early do the bells their homage pay,
Of holy hymning to new Easter day!
Already sing the quires the soothing song
That erst, round the dark grave, an angel throng
Sang, to proclaim the great salvation sure!
Quire of Women.
With spices and balsams
All sweetly we bathed Him;
With cloths of fine linen
All cleanly we swathed Him;
In the tomb of the rock, where
His body was lain,
We come, and we seek
Our loved Master, in vain!
Quire of Angels.
Christ is arisen!
Praised be His name!
Whose love shared with sinners
Their sorrow and shame;
Who bore the hard trial
Of self-denial,
And, victorious, ascends to the skies whence
He came.
Faust.
What seek ye here, ye gently-swaying tones,
Sweet seraph-music ’mid a mortal’s groans?
Soft-natured men may own that soothing chaunt;
I hear the message, but the faith I want.
For still the child to Faith most dear
Was Miracle: nor I may vaunt
To mount, and mingle with the sphere
Whence such fair news floats down to mortal ear.
And yet, with youthful memories fraught, this strain
Hath power to call me back to life again.
A time there was when Heaven’s own kiss,
