Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Hymns of the Eastern Church (1862). VI. “O happy band of pilgrims”John Mason Neale (1818–1866)
O
If onward ye will tread
With Jesus as your Fellow
To Jesus as your Head!
As Jesus did for men:
O happy, if ye hunger
As Jesus hunger’d then!
He carried as your due:
The crown that Jesus weareth
He weareth it for you.
The Hope, in which ye yearn,
The Love that through all troubles
To Him alone will turn,—
To lead you to His Sight?
What are they, save the effluence
Of Uncreated Light?
The sorrows ye endure,
The manifold temptations
That Death alone can cure,—
Of right celestial worth?
What are they but the ladder,
Set up to Heav’n on earth?
Look upward to the skies;—
Where such a light affliction
Shall win you such a prize!