Rise, Crowned with Light

Rise, Crowned with Light is a hymn derived by alteration from a poem written by the English poet Alexander Pope. The Cyber Hymnal gives the date of the original poem, entitled "A Sacred Eclogue in Imitation of Virgil's Pollio" as 1712. The poem begins with the lines

Ye Nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:

To heav’nly themes sublimer strains belong.

and the line that serves as the incipit of the hymn is the 84th line of the poem. The alteration of the poem into the hymn, involving both omission and reordering of lines in the last part of the poem, is by an unidentified hand.

Lyrics

1 Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise!

Exalt thy tow'ring head and lift thine eyes!

See heav'n its sparkling portals wide display

And break upon thee in a flood of day.

2 See a long race thy spacious courts adorn:

See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,

In crowding ranks on ev'ry side arise,

Demanding life, impatient for the skies.

3 See barb'rous nations at thy gates attend,

Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend:

See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings,

While ev'ry land its joyous tribute brings.

4 The seas shall waste, the skies to smoke decay,

Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;

But fixed his word, his saving pow'r, remains;

Thy realms shall last, thine own Messiah reigns.

Textual variations

The text given above is transcribed from Christian Worship, 1941. Other sources (see External Links, below) vary in some details:

• Punctuation:
  

; for : at lines 2a and 3b

; for ! at line 1b

! for . at line 4d

"sons and daughters, yet" for "sons, and daughters yet" at line 2b

• Capitalization:
  

Cyberhymnal.org capitalizes "Head" (1b), "Heav'n" (1c), "His Word, His" (4c), and all occurrences of "Thy" in stanza three.

• Wording:
  

"the" for "thy" at line 3b

"joyful" for "joyous" at line 3d

"in smoke" for "to smoke" at line 4a

"this Word, this saving" for "his word, his saving" at line 4c

"Thy own" for "thine own" at line 4d

Tunes

I have found the hymn in three sources, each setting it to a different tune:

• National Hymn : Cyberhymnal.org
• Old 124th : The Lutheran Hymnal, 1941 (per ccel.org)
• Russian Hymn : Christian Worship, 1941

Meter

The hymn is written in quatrains of 10s, thus 10 10 10 10.

External Links

Pope's "Sacred Eclogue"
Lyrics at cyberhymnal.org
Lyrics at ccel.org