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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse  »  111. From ‘The Eternal Word’

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

Frederick William Faber (1814–1863)

111. From ‘The Eternal Word’

I

AMID the eternal silences

God’s endless Word was spoken;

None heard but He who always spake,

And the silence was unbroken.

Oh marvellous! Oh worshipful!

No song or sound is heard,

But everywhere and every hour,

In love, in wisdom, and in power,

The Father speaks His dear Eternal Word!

II

For ever in the eternal land

The glorious Day is dawning;

For ever is the Father’s Light

Like an endless outspread morning.

Oh marvellous! Oh worshipful!

No song or sound is heard,

But everywhere and every hour,

In love, in wisdom, and in power,

The Father speaks His dear Eternal Word!

III

From the Father’s vast tranquillity,

In light co-equal glowing

The kingly consubstantial Word

Is unutterably flowing.

Oh marvellous! Oh worshipful!

No song or sound is heard,

But everywhere and every hour,

In love, in wisdom, and in power,

The Father speaks His dear Eternal Word!

IV

For ever climbs that Morning Star

Without ascent or motion;

For ever is its daybreak shed

On the Spirit’s boundless ocean.

Oh marvellous! Oh worshipful!

No song or sound is heard,

But everywhere and every hour,

In love, in wisdom, and in power,

The Father speaks His dear Eternal Word!