The Latin Hymn-writers and Their Hymns

by Samuel Willoughby Duffield

Regem tenebrarum trahit.

Ut sis perenne mentibus

Paschale, Jesu, gaudium:

A morte dira criminum

Vitae renatos libera.

Now it is impossible to deny to the revised version merits of its own. Not only does it use the Latin words which classic usage requires—as dapes in poetry for coena, recepta for reddita, inferis for barathro—but it brings into clearer view the facts of the Old Testament story which the hymn treats as typical of the Christian passover. The (imperfect) rhyme of the original is everywhere sacrificed to the demands of metre, which probably is no loss. But the gain is not in simplicity, vigor, and freshness. In these the old hymn is much superior. The last verse but one, for instance, presents in the old hymn a distinct and living picture—the picture Luther tells us he delighted in when a boy chorister singing the Easter songs of the Church. But in the recast the vividness is blurred, and classic reminiscence takes the place of the simple and direct speech the early Church made for itself out of the Latin tongue.

Take again the first part of the dedication hymn, of which Angulare fundamentum is the conclusion:

Urbs beata Hierusalem

Dicta pacis visio

Quae construitur in coelis