O Cap­tain of God’s host, whose dread­ful might
Led forth to war the arm­èd se­ra­phim,
And from the star­ry height,
Subdued in burn­ing light,
Cast down that an­cient dra­gon dark and grim;

Thine an­gels, Christ, we laud in so­lemn lays,
Our el­der breth­ren of the crys­tal sky,
Who ’mid Thy glo­ry’s blaze
The cease­less an­them raise
And gird Thy throne in faith­ful min­is­try.

We ce­le­brate their love, whose view­less wing
Hath left for us so oft their man­sion high,
The mer­cies of their king
To mor­tal saints to bring,
Or guard the couch of slum­ber­ing in­fan­cy.

But Thee, the First and Last, we glo­ri­fy,
Who, when Thy world was sunk in death and sin,
Not with Thine hi­er­ar­chy,
The ar­mies of the sky,
But didst with Thine own arm the bat­tle win;

Alone didst pass the dark and dis­mal shore,
Alone didst tread the wine­press, and alone,
All glo­ri­ous in Thy gore,
Didst light and life re­store
To us who lay in dark­ness and un­done.

Therefore with an­gels and arch­an­gels we
To Thy dear love our thank­ful chor­us raise,
And tune our songs to Thee
Who art, and art to be,
And, end­less as Thy mer­cies, sound Thy praise.