O what their joy and their glory must be

Date: 02 July 2005 07:23:11

O what their joy and their glory must be,
Those endless Sabbaths the blessèd ones see!
Crown for the valiant; to weary ones rest;
God shall be all, and in all ever blest.

What are the Monarch, his court and his throne?
What are the peace and the joy that they own?
Tell us, ye blest ones, that in it have share,
If what ye feel ye can fully declare?

Truly 'Jerusalem' name that we shore,
'Vision of peace' that brings joy evermore!
Wish and fulfilment can severed be ne'er,
Nor the thing prayer for come short of the prayer.

We, where no trouble distraction can bring,
Safely the anthems of Sion shall sing;
While for thy grace, Lord, their voices of praise
Thy blessèd people shall evermore raise.

There dawns no Sabbath, no Sabbath is o'er,
Those Sabbath-keppers have one and no more;
One and unending is the triumph-song
Which to the Angels and us shall belong.

Now in the meanwhile, with hearts raised on high,
We for that country must yearn and must sigh,
Seeking Jerusalem, dear native land,
Through our long exile on Babylon's strand.

Low before him with our praises we fall,
Of whom, and in whom, and through whom are all;
Of whom, the Father; and through whom, the Son;
In whom, the Spirit, with these ever one. Amen.

Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
trans. J M Neale (1818-1866)

A favourite hymn of mine: looking forward to the eternal joys and endless songs of praise in heaven. And the tune, Regnator Orbis is equally beautiful. I play this hymn often, having it on one of the many hymn CDs I own. The booklet which comes with the CD describes the history of the hymn-writer and, where known, the hymn and the tune. The story of Abelard is particularly interesting:

The love of Abelard and Eloise is one of the great romantic tragedies of all time. As a young priest in about 1100, Abelard was appointed to instruct the young Eloise and they fell in love. Against the law of the church they married, and as a result were banished into the religious life. Abelard resumed his public lecturing and became famous, but was frequently under attack for his unorthodox ideas. When eventually Eloise became Abbess of the Convent of the Paraclete, Abelard wrote a sequence of hymns for her nuns to sing. This is the hymn for Saturday evening, but instead of looking forward to the worship of the coming Sunday it looks forward with deep longing to the eternal Sabbath of heaven. Some have seen encoded in these words Abelard's own abiding longing for Eloise.