The Gates Of Eternity Swing

WAKE, O my heart, to what music
Glad Easter in nature stirs;
Lift to the risen Redeemer .
A song that can rival hers.
From the East lo I the day god in triumph
Rides forth from the realms of night,
And proclaims to souls seated in sadness
The birth of eternity's light.

Soft as the dew on rose petals,

This air on the spirit falls; Flower floss sprinkles the meadows,

Or peeps from the crannied walls; And the peals of a glad resurrection

Make melody mingled with hope; We are mariners after a tempest,

All eyes for morn's russeting slope.

Life in this tomb is a shadow

Of life that awaits us still;
Death is the doorway to ages

Of years on eternity's hill.
For the seedlet and we, to awaken.

Must sleep for a space in the earth;
Die to-day, and we greet on the morrow

Our second and realler birth.

Peace can consort still with sorrow,

And light from the Christ's grave burst,
Streamed o'er a neighboring gibbet,

To finger its cross-beam first.
God is peace, and His saints do but image

Eternity's calm in their lives;
Half suppressed is the mirth of God's servants,

With penance for gaoler and gyves.

Exiles, with faces set homeward,

By Babylon's river brink,
Seated, we weep at remembrance

Of Zion and pensive think;
On the willows our instruments hanging,

No song breaks the stillness around;
But a music unheard teems with rapture,

Our hearts are not bowed to the ground.

Soldiers, we follow a Captain,

Who never yet knew defeat;
Life is His slave and death conquered

Is tied to His chariot seat.
Let the earth lift Hosannas to Heaven,

Creation with miracle ring!
Christ is God, and wide open to receive Him

The gates of eternity swing.

Owen A. Hill, S.J. 

Link (here)