“AVE, MARIS STELLA.”
One of the titles which the Roman Catholic world applied to the Mother of Jesus, in the Middle Ages, was “Stella Maris,” “Star of the Sea.” Columbus, being a Catholic, sang this hymn, or caused it to be sung, every evening, it is said, during his perilous voyage to an unknown land. The marine epithet by which the Virgin Mary is addressed is admirable as a stroke of poetry, and the hymn—of six stanzas—is a prayer which, though offered to her as to a divine being, was no doubt sincere in the simple sailor hearts of 1492.
The two following quatrains finish the voyagers' petition, and point it with a doxology—
Vitam praesta puram,
Iter para tutum,
Ut videntes Jesum
Semper collaetemur.
Sit laus Deo Patri,
Summo Christo decus,
Spiritui Sancto,