Easter Day

This Easter Day, we return to this hymn

At break of day the stone was moved

1.
At break of day the stone was moved,
The earth beneath us stirred;
The blackbird sang along the hedge,
And hope rose with its word.

2.
For Christ, who walks the Shannon’s mist
And meets us on our ways,
Now stands beside our weeping place
And speaks our name with grace.

3.
Like Mary in the garden’s hush
We turn, unsure, afraid;
Yet find the Risen One alive
In every light He made.

4.
The Shannon’s tide, the holy wells,
The ringforts on the hill,
All shimmer with the promised truth:
God’s love is with us still.

5.
From Kildare’s fields to Antrim’s cliffs,
From Louth to western shore,
The Risen Christ restores our hearts
And calls us to adore.

6.
So lift your voice, O trembling earth,
Let every people sing:
The Lord of life is risen today —
Our Hope, our Christ, our King.

Reflection

At Easter, the world does not begin again with noise, but with a quiet turning.

A stone moved.
A garden entered.
A name spoken.

The Resurrection does not first arrive as proclamation, but as presence—Christ beside the weeping, Christ walking unrecognised, Christ calling us by name in the ordinary places we thought we knew.

In this hymn, the blackbird sings before the Church does. Creation itself begins the praise, as if the earth has been waiting for this moment longer than we have. The same fields, rivers, and hills remain—but they are no longer what they were. They shimmer now with a deeper truth: death is not the end, and love has not failed.

The Risen Christ is not distant from the world, but newly present within it—walking the Shannon’s mist, standing beside our grief, meeting us again in the places where we thought hope had been buried.

Easter does not erase the wounds. It transforms them.

And so we are not called only to believe, but to recognise:
to see Christ where we had not expected Him,
to hear Him speak our name,
to find Him already present in the life we are living.

The stone is moved.
The morning has come.
And even now, Christ is near.

Hymn information

First line: At break of day the stone was moved.
Text: Michael McFarland Campbell
Metre: Common Metre
Tune: Ellacombe DCM – sing two verses per tune
Theme: Resurrection, Easter Day

Copyright

© Michael McFarland Campbell. 2026. 
Permission granted for local church or parish use with attribution. Not for commercial reproduction.

Written recently and shared here as part of the NeuroDivine hymn collection.