Canon for Ascension Day. Ode I.

Hymns of the Eastern Church, by J.M. Neale, [1884], at sacred-texts.com

p. 209

CANON FOR ASCENSION DAY.

This is the crowning glory of the poet Joseph; he has here with a happy boldness entered into the lists with S. John Damascene, to whom, on this one occasion, he must be pronounced superior. I have preserved the alphabetic arrangement, and "Joseph's Ode" at the end. All the Catavasias are in Iambics.

ODE. I.

by S. Joseph of the Studium

ἀνέστης τριήμερος.

A   fter three days Thou didst rise
    Visible to mortal eyes:
    First the Eleven worshipped Thee,—
    Then the rest in Galilee:
    Then a cloud in glory bore
    Thee to Thine own native shore.

p. 210

B   oldly David pour'd the strain:
    God ascends to Heav’n again:
    With the trumpet's pealing note
    Alleluias round Him float;
    As He now, by hard-won right,
    Seeks the Fount of purest Light!

C   rime on crime, and grief on grief,
    Left the world without relief:
    Now that aged, languid race,
    God hath quickened by His grace:
    As Thy going up we see,
    Glory to Thy Glory be!

Catavasía.

θέιῳ καλυφθείς.

D   arkness and awe, when Sinai's top he trod,
    Taught him of faltering tongue the Law of God: p. 211
    The mist was scattered from his spirit's eye,
    He prais’d and hymn’d the Maker of the sky,
    When He That is and was and shall be, passed by.