“To thee the prophets testified,
In thee their hearts rejoice—
Our Father bids us seek thy side
To hear and heed thy voice.”
I have changed the two last stanzas into the second person instead of the third. Otherwise the rendering is a faithful and literal version of the hymn. This, then, is a good proof of the genuine ring of true metal to be found in Prudentius.
The variety and flexibility of his measures, in spite of archaic or post-classical words and phrases, deserves our highest praise. He is a writer of the “Brazen Age,” but he has not sunk far from the “Silver,” nor exactly into the falchion sweep of the more brutal “Iron” time.
Here is another of his hymns, the Nox et tenebrae et nubila, which has obtained a place in the Roman Breviary:
“Night, clouds and darkness, get you gone!
Depart, confusions of the earth!
Light comes; the sky so dark and wan