Sing My Tongue, The Glorious Battle

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,
With completed vict'ry rife,
And above the cross's trophy
Tell the triumph of the strife,
How the world's Redeemer conquered
By surrend'ring of His Life.

God his Maker sorely grieving
That the first born Adam fell,
When he ate the noxious apple
Whose reward was death and hell,
Noted then this wood, the ruin
Of the ancient wood to quell.

For the work of our salvation
Needs would have his order so,
And the multiform deceiver's
Art by art would overthrow.
And from thence would bring the med'cine
Whence the venom of the foe.

Wherefore, when the sacred fullness
Of th'appointed time was come,
This world's Maker left His Father,
Left His bright and heav'nly home,
And proceeded, God Incarnate,
From the virgin's holy womb.

Weeps the Infant in the manger
That in Bethl'hem's stable stands;
And His limbs the virgin mother
Doth compose in swaddling bands,
Meetly thus in linen folding
Of her God the feet and hands.

Thirty years among us dwelling,
His appointed time fulfilled;
Giv'n for this, He meets His Passion,
For that this He freely willed;
On the Cross the Lamb is lifted,
On Whose Death our hope we build.

He endured the shame and spitting.
Vinegar and nails and reed;
As His Blessed Side is opened,
Water thence and blood proceed:
Earth, and sky, and stars, and ocean,
By that flood are cleansed indeed.

Faithful Cross! above all other
One and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit compares with Thee:
Sweetest wood, and sweetest iron,
Sweetest weight sustaining free.

Bend thy boughs, O Tree of Glory!
Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigour
That thy birth bestowed, suspend:
And the King of Heavenly Beauty
On thy bosom gently tend.

Thou alone wast counted worthy
This world's ransom to uphold;
For a shipwrecked world preparing
Harbor, like the Ark of old;
With the sacred Blood anointed
From the wounded Lamb that rolled.

Laud and honor to the Father,
Laud and honor to the Son,
Laud and honor to the Spirit,
Ever Three and ever One:
Consubstantial, co-eternal,
While unending ages run.