作词 : Joost van den Vondel
  Chorus of Angels:
 
 *Strophe*
 
 How glares the noble front of Heaven!
 Why streams the holy light so red
 Upon our face, overspread
 With mournful mists from darkness driven?
 What sad cloud hath profaned
 That pure and never-stained
 Clear sapphire, wondrous bright.
 The fire, the flame, the light
 Of the resplendent Power,
 Omnipotence? Why doth that glow
 Of God as black as blood thus grow
 That in our aery bower
 So pleased our eyes? O Angels, say
 The cause of this deep gloom now dimming
 Your radiance? O'er Adam's sway
 On choral raptures ye were swimming,
 On Spirit breath, amid a glow
 That vault and choir and court below
 And towers and battlements o'erflooded
 With showers of gold, while joys unclouded
 Smiled from the brows of all that live:
 Who is it can the reason give?
 
 *Antistrophe*
 
 When Gabriel's trumpet, richly sounding,
 Inflamed our souls till a new song
 Of praise burst forth among
 Those dales, with roses fair abounding,
 'Mid the celestial bowers
 Of Paradise, whose flowers
 Did ope, joyed by such dew
 Of praise, then upwards through
 The vast seemed Envy stealing.
 A countless host of Spirits dumb.
 And wan and pale and sad and grum,
 In crowds, dire woe revealing,
 Crept slowly past, with drooping eye,
 And forehead smooth now frowning rimple.
 The doves of Heaven here on high,
 Once innocent and pure and simple,
 Began to sigh, and seemed to grieve
 As if e'en Heaven they did believe
 Too small since Adam was created,
 And man for such a crown was fated.
 This stain offends the Eye of Light:
 It flames the face of the Infinite.
 
 In love we would yet mingle in their ranks:
 Again to calm this restless discontent.