C. S. Lewis’s Lost Easter Hymn

When it comes to church music, C. S. Lewis was a bit of a curmudgeon. “I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music,”[1] said Lewis, reflecting back on attending hymn-filled church services. Despite this incredibly strong reaction, he ultimately found merit not in the music or lyrics but in seeing the saints edified in the singing. Lewis preferred a service with no singing, which makes the letter below, penned in October 1958, fascinating—Lewis responded to a challenge from fellow scholar and friend Francis Turner and created an Easter Hymn.[2]

Lewis had been spinning stories, metaphors, and pictures for nearly three decades to engage human imagination and help his audience see the world the way that he did—Lewis saw enchantment everywhere.

This Easter hymn is the only hymn written by Lewis and is amongst the most explicit Christian poems he ever wrote (he does send Dorothy Sayers a satirical poem titled “An Evolutionary Hymn” in a 1954 letter). Here is what Lewis wrote:

Lords coëval with creation,

Seraph, Cherub, Throne and Power,

Princedom, Virtue, Domination,

Hail the long-awaited hour!

Bruised in head, with broken pinion,

Trembling for his old dominion,

See the ancient dragon cower!

     For the Prince of Heaven has risen,

     Victor, from his shattered prison.

Loudly roaring from the regions

Where no sunbeam e’er was shed,

Rise and dance, ye ransomed legions

Of the cold and countless dead!

Gates of adamant are broken,

Words of conquering power are spoken

Through the God who died and bled:

     Hell lies vacant, spoiled and cheated

     By the Lord of life defeated

Bear, behemoth, bustard, camel,

Warthog, wombat, kangaroo,

Insect, reptile, fish and mammal,

Tree, flower, grass, and lichen too,

Rise and romp and ramp, awakening,

For the age-old curse is breaking.

     All things shall be made anew;

     Nature’s rich rejuvenation

Follows on Man’s liberation.

Eve’s and Adam’s son and daughter,

Sinful, weary, twisted, mired,

Pale with terror, thinned with slaughter,

Robbed of all your hearts desired,

Look! Rejoice! One born of woman,

Flesh and blood and bones all human,

One who wept and could be tired,

     Risen from the vilest death, has given

     All who will the hope of Heaven.

You do not need to be an expert in hymns to recognize sublime lyrics and an odd list of animals (perhaps this is an example of why we so often skipped a stanza here and there at the church where I grew up). Lewis acknowledged in his letter to Turner that “it aims a little more than to be mouth-filling.” Undoubtedly, the third stanza with its Australian flair fits his description. But amid what could very likely have been a thrown-together set of verses come some moments of brilliance.

Poetic Imagination

Lewis loved poetry and would occasionally share poems with friends in his correspondence. His poetic instinct spellbinds the reader and points them to the glorious work of Jesus Christ. Lewis uses imagery to move us from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell to the wonders of creation, and finally, to eternal hope come to earth. In verse, Lewis crafts themes of Scripture and, it would seem, Narnia—with animals, battles, dragons, and sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. The verses and meter ooze with Lewis’s trademark imaginative metaphors and pictures.

Each verse has a moment of transcendent power and beauty as Lewis weaves his spell. Satan, the ancient dragon, was defeated by the empty tomb and left cowering from the head-bruising power of Christ’s trampling over death. The description of hell’s “gates of adamant” pulls from Milton to show the power of Christ’s resurrection prevailing over the unbreakable gates. Lewis issues a triumphant call to creation to wait no more and instead to “rise and romp and ramp, awakening.” Then he closes with a glorious hope because Christ is “Risen from the vilest death, has given all who will the hope of heaven.”

Lewis told Turner that his sentiments were Scriptural, the verses of poetry move the reader from the head-crushing heir of promise of Genesis 3 to the new creation of Revelation 21 to show that the coming of Christ to die and rise again is the climax of God’s greater story.

Transcendence Comes Near

Why do so many people in diverse Christian traditions love C. S. Lewis? This hymn is one example of countless others, where he moves a reader from the heavens to earth, provokes awe and wonder, and reveals Christ as the transcendent Lord who steps into human history. Lewis uses mastery of language and metaphor to create pictures in the reader’s mind that bring enchantment into the cold and convenient worlds we want to frame for ourselves.

Writing in 1958, Lewis had been spinning stories, metaphors, and pictures for nearly three decades to engage human imagination and help his audience see the world the way that he did—Lewis saw enchantment everywhere. He despised the modern materialist who rejected the enchantment and how God’s transcendence filled the world. Lewis believed God placed meaning in the great and small things of creation. He saw our longings and desires as signs of God’s good design for our lives. The coming of Christ shows how God lifts up our eyes from lesser things to greater things.

For Lewis, the transcendent God comes near in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Lewis described the incarnation as “the central chapter of history.”[3] In this Easter hymn, Lewis draws again on the incarnation as the climax to the whole work of God on Easter. You see, Lewis saw the Incarnation as “the story of descent and resurrection… I am not referring simply to the first few hours or the first few weeks of the resurrection. I am talking of this whole, huge pattern of descent, down, down, and then up again.”[4] At Christ’s resurrection, all of the cosmos, from the angels in the first stanza to the gates of hell in the second, are shaken by the transcendental power of God. Each animal, even the wombat, has its longing rejuvenated by the curse-breaking, and every son of Adam and daughter of Eve can find hope and freedom in the God who took on flesh, died for our sins, and rose in victory.

At Easter, we remember the Savior who came and rose again, we celebrate the victory that redeems and restores sinners, and we proclaim that the God of the universe came near and defeated the power of sin and death.