The Latin Hymn-writers and Their Hymns

by Samuel Willoughby Duffield

To thee we exiles, children of Eve, are crying.

To thee we aspire, groaning and moaning in this the vale of our sorrow.

Lo, thou therefore, our advocate, turn upon us those pitiful eyes of thine,

And after this exile show us Jesus, the blessed fruit of thy womb,

O merciful, O pious, O sweet Virgin Maria.

This is another of his sequences, the Rex regum Dei agne, found by Brander among the antiquities of St. Gall:

King of kings, Lamb of God, mighty Lion of Judah,

The death of sin by the merit of the cross and the life of justice; giving the fruit of the tree of life for the taste of wisdom; the medicine of grace for the loss of glory,

Since thy blood restrained the might of the sword of flame, opening the garden of paradise, the seed of obedience, the medicine of grace.

This day is illustrious to the Lord; peace is on the earth, lightning to the shades below and light to the saints above; the day of the double baptism of law and gospel.