The Lord and King of All Things

Full Text

The LORD and King of all things
But yesterday was born:
And Stephen’s glorious offering
His birthtide shall adorn.
No pearls of orient splendour,
No jewels can he show;
But with his own true heart’s-blood
His shining vestments glow.

Come, ye that love the Martyrs,
And pluck the flow’rs of song,
And weave them in a garland
For this our suppliant throng;
And cry,—O thou that shinest
In grace’s brighest ray,
CHRIST’s valiant Protomartyr,
For peace and favour pray!

63

Thou first of all Confessors,
Thou of all Deacons crown,
Of every following athlete
The glory and renown:
Make supplication, standing
Before CHRIST’s Royal Throne,
That He would give the kingdom,
And for our sins atone!

Hymns of the Eastern Church, 1866

Translator: John Mason Neale

Neale, John Mason, D.D., was born in Conduit Street, London, on Jan. 24, 1818. He inherited intellectual power on both sides: his father, the Rev. Cornelius Neale, having been Senior Wrangler, Second Chancellor's Medallist, and Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and his mother being the daughter of John Mason Good, a man of considerable learning. Both father and mother are said to have been "very pronounced Evangelicals." The father died in 1823, and the boy's early training was entirely under the direction of his mother, his deep attachment for whom is shown by the fact that, not long before his death, he wrote of her as "a mother to whom I owe more than I can express." He was educated at Sherborne Grammar School, and was afterwards… Go to person page >

Author: St. Anatolius

Anatolius, one of the Greek hymn-writers. No details are known of him. From the fact that he celebrates martyrs who died in the 6th and early part of the 7th century, it is certain that he is not to be identified (as by Neale) with the patriarch who succeeded Flavian in 449, and afterward procured the enactment of the famous canon of the Council of Chalcedon, which raised Constantinople to the second place among the patriarchal sees (Dict. of Ch. Biog., i. p. 110). A letter is said to exist showing that he was a pupil of Theodore of the Studium (759-826). More than a hundred hymns, all of them short ones, are found in the Mensea and Octoechus. From this account, derived from Anth. Graec. Garm. Christ, p. xli, it will be seen that his poems… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: The Lord and King of All Things
Author: St. Anatolius (c. 458)
Translator: John Mason Neale (1862)
Meter: 7.6.7.6
Language: English

Timeline

Instances

Instances (4)TextImageAudioScore
A Treasury of Catholic Song: comprising some two hundred hymns from Catholic soruces old and new #26Image
Hymns and Poetry of the Eastern Church #105aImage
Hymns of the Eastern Church (5th ed.) #62TextImage
The English Hymnal #32