Over earth, and sea, and sky,
Borne by songs eternal.
QUICUMQUE CHRISTUM QUÆRITIS
This hymn for the Epiphany forms part of a larger one of very complex authorship, known as A solis ortûs cardine, Et usque terræ limitem. This portion of that Christmas hymn has by some been assigned to St. Ambrose, but by a majority of judges to Prudentius, “the Horace and Virgil of the Christians,” in the estimate of the scholarly Bentley. Aurelius Prudentius, Clemens, or the Merciful, was born in 348, somewhere in the north of Spain. After filling various secular offices he retired, in his fifty-seventh year, into private life, and devoted himself to the composition of sacred verse. He died circa 413, but where we are not told.
I
O ye who seek the Lord, come nigh,
To heaven uplift your reverent eyes,
The Royal Banner of our God
Is blazoned on the midnight skies.