ADESTE COELITUM CHORI.
Hither come, ye choirs immortal,
Singing joyful canticles!
Christ hath passed the grave’s dark portal,
With the dead no more he dwells.
All in vain doth malice station
Watchful guards the tomb before,
All in vain the faithless nation
Sets the seal upon the door.
Fruitless terror, from this prison
None have stolen him away,
But by his own strength arisen,
Victor, ends he death’s dread fray.
Prisoned, and the seal unbroken,
He can leave at will the tomb,
As at first—behold the token—
He could leave the Virgin’s womb.
When he on the tree hung dying,
Raving men, who round him stood,
“Come down from the cross,” were crying,
“Then we own thee Son of God.”
But, his Father’s will obeying
Even unto death, he dies;
Priest and Victim, ’tis the slaying
Of the world’s great Sacrifice.
Nay, the cross was not forsaken;
Dead, yet greater thing did he,
By himself, his life retaken
Proved him Son of God to be.
With thee dying, with thee rising,
Grant, O Christ, that we may be,
Earthly vanities despising,
Choosing heaven all lovingly!
Praise be to the Father given,
To the Son, our Leader. He
Calleth us with him to heaven;
Spirit, equal praise to thee!
A man of very different powers is the Abbé Sebastian Besnault, of whom nothing is told us except that he was chaplain of the parish of St. Maurice in Sens, and died in 1726. The six hymns ascribed to him in the Paris Breviary are among the finest in that collection. Three are hymns on the Circumcision (Debilis cessent elementa legis; Felix dies, quam proprio; and Noxium Christus simul introivit); one is an Ascension hymn (Promissa, tellus, concipe gaudium), and two are Dedication hymns (Ecce sedes hic Tonantis and Urbs beata, vera pacis), the latter being a recast of the Urbs beata Hierusalem. Quite justly does A. Gazier (in his thesis De Santolii Victorini Sacris Hymnis, Paris, 1875) say that if Besnault equalled Jean Santeul in the volume of his hymns, he would not rank below him as a sacred poet, since he quite equals him in his Latinity and is his superior as a spiritual writer. We give Dr. A. R. Thompson’s version of his recast of the Urbs beata Hierusalem: