Gabriel. Chorus of Angels

Gabriel:

Give ear, ye Angels all; give ear, ye hosts Of Heaven. The highest Goodness, from whose breast Flow all things good and all things holy, who Of His beneficence ne'er wearied grows And of whose teeming grace the riches never Shall know decrease; whose might and Being transcend The comprehension of His creatures all: This Goodness, in the image of Himself, Formed man, also the Angels that they might Together here with Him securely hold The Realm eterne—the good ne'er-comprehended. Having the while with faithfulness maintained His firm prescribed law. He also built This wondrous universe, the world below Made manifest, and meet for God and man, That in this garden man might rule and there Might multiply; acknowledge God with all His seed; Him ever serve and e'er revere, And thus mount up, by the stairway of the world, The firmament of beatific light Within, into the ne'er-created glow. Though Spirits may seem pre-eminent, above All other beings, yet God hath decreed, Even from eternity, that man shall high Exalted be, even o'er the Angel world; Him destined for a glory and a crown Of splendor not inferior to His own. Ye shall behold the eternal Word above, When clad in flesh and bone, anointed Lord And Chief and Judge, mete justice to the hosts Of Spirits, to Angels and to men alike, From His high seat, in His unshadowed Realm. There in the centre stands the holy Throne Already consecrate. Let all the hosts Angelic then have care to worship Him, When He shall ride in triumph in, who hath The human form exalted o'er our own. Then dimly shines the bright translucent flame Of Seraphim, beside this light of man, This glow and radiance divine. The rays Of Mercy shall all Nature's splendors drown. 'Tis fated thus—and stands irrevocable.