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Paschal Song

Sedulius, tr. Sigerson, 1922; selections

Amid these gifts munificent, the eveOf that great Day drew nigh, when He would leaveThe …

Amid these gifts munificent, the eve
Of that great Day drew nigh, when He would leave
The mortal and th’ undying flesh assume—
Not other but the same—which should illume
The plenitude of Light, and, raised on high
From the great Deeps, outshine the starry sky!

Then He: “O Father! save me in this hour
Who in this hour for this have come.” In pow’r
He spake: “O Father! glorify Thy name.”
A Voice descending from the Heavens came,
“I glorified it and will yet again
It glorify.”

How manifest was then
Th’ excelling evidence of Heaven to men!—
But no acceptance met, for some there said:
“An angel spoke”; and some “It thunderèd.”
O blind of eyes! O hardest hearts of earth!
No thunder nor no angel e’er gave birth
Unto its Maker, Christ, that thus it spoke
When He His Father’s name did there invoke.
The Voice divine, which all the people heard
The Word acknowledging, reveals the Word!

Then, in remembered ways, He kept the Feast,
The Passover, and, making Him the least,
He ministered to them, their gracious Guide—
Our true Exemplar—Who, arising, tied
The girded linen; so that, loving, He
Might first His servants serve, with office free.
Nor yet, when washing His disciples feet,
Passed Judas by,—though plotting fell deceit.
But nothing, Traitor! serves thy washing there
Of feet, whose heart is as a sepulchre,—
Without, all fair and newly washed in white,
Within, a fetid corpse and blackest night.

They led Him, quite forsaken, to the hall,
Repellent, wherein Caiaphas, chief of all
The priests sat throned, and chief of all in crime.
For he and they, devising, sought that time
To slay the Just, by witnesses forsworn:
A myriad lies fly out, a moment born,
And die inept—as when the withered straw
Takes flame and flares aloft, the very law
That of its frailty makes a glare outflash
As sudden quenches it in sordid ash.—

But when they found no way, through guile, to pass,
Their fury rose against Him then. Alas!
What tears do hinder when I must recall
The mob’s tumultuous rage, the blows, and all
Th’ affronts that sacrilegous hands have laid
With cruel wrongs upon that Sacred Head!

But He, all patient, did His Body make
Subject to scorn and suff’ring for our sake:
For of those wounds shall come our healing’s fee,
And by those shameful slights we cleansed shall be,
And by those bonds are made for ever free!

As lamb unto the slaughter, when they brought
The patient Lord to Pilate’s hall, they naught
Of evil could accuse Him, innocent:
“He saith He is a King” was their complaint—
True King indeed, and Falsehood judges Truth
Condemned as Crime. Nor wonder if the ruth
And rule of God the people should refuse—
Barabbas now, as Baal, of old they choose,
Reject the Righteous and the Wretch excuse:
Inverting thus the beam of just award—
Who death had given they to life restored—
To death they doomed Life’s Author and their Lord!

When now the Holy One was given, bound,
To suffer doom, rude soldiery around
Arrayed Him in a scarlet robe, the sign
And hue of gory Death; a Crown they twine
Of thorns and press upon His bleeding Head
Which all our sins hath borne and sufferèd.
In His right hand with mock they set a reed—
A Sceptre, trembling, feeble, frail, indeed,
Then take the alien robe that He His own
Apparel may do on—by this be known
His garb of human flesh laid down, He will
Resume once more, and bear immutable,
Undying after death—when He shall rise
In fulness of His glory o’er the skies.

Nor deem disparate to the Life Divine
That He, when offered mingled gall and wine,
Should taste it, but refuse: this symbol saith
That now, about to taste a time of Death,
The flesh shall shrink before its bitter breath.

The Peace of the Cross

Upraised upon the spreading wood, He hath
By sacred Love displaced the rule of Wrath:
Peace of the Cross is He,¹ whose burthen there
Illumed its bond, and clothed with honour fair
The penalty of Hate—its every line
By torture sanctified and blessed benign,—
The Sign of Shame is made Salvation’s Sign!

For who but knows the Cross we should revere
Which joyful bore the Lord: He gathered here
The symbolled Quarters of the World’s great Sphere:
The Orient shineth from His Head supreme—
Beneath His feet the Vesper planets beam,
And either Pole at either hand shall seem.
All nature lives of its Creator’s face
And Christ doth on the Cross the world embrace!

Now, when the Innocent they crucified,
They hung a Murderer at either side,
Thus striving by one sentence and one shame
To make the cause seem as the fate the same,
A common doom, but how unlike the cause!—
These, many crimes make forfeit to the laws,
These to the world are guilty, Robbers grim,
To Him the World is guilty, saved by Him!

Nor lost He there, amidst such sufferings,
His right supreme of judgment o’er all things,
Impartial, with inerrant balance weighed:
For both beholding, one is chosen made,
And one reproved. Him not ev’n in death
Ferocious life forsakes, his latest breath
Assails with savage mock his loving Lord,
As when by boar a tender vine is gored.

The other, suppliant, lowers his painèd eyes
Adoring Christ whom Christ did recognise,
As Shepherd gathers, in a desert wide,
His wandering sheep, and leads him by His side
Into thy vales, O Paradise, serene,
Where flowers perennial charm the grasses green,
Where pleasant fruits abound, and flowing floods
With spray of waters feed the Joy of Woods!

Then cloud on dreadful cloud was sudden hurled,
And Darkness terrible o’erspread the World,
Funereal black the day. The sun’s great light
Lay hid in shrouding gloom of mournful Night,
Obscuring all with wailing and affright.
Such aspect, God the Father’s aid did give
The orphaned Elements (so they might grieve
This death)—which gladdened at their Master’s birth,
For as, at birth, Light radiant shone o’er earth,
It vanished when He died, nor vanished long—
A mystic sign, through space, that as the throng
Of heav’nly stars lay hid three hours in gloom,
So should their Lord three days abide the tomb.

Nor did the Witness, Earth, escape unharmed,
But trembled through its depth, and, all alarmed,
Nature beheld its Author and took dread
Lest He descending—Nature’s stay and head—
Its sequent mass should move, to Chaos led,
But Love unmeasured sought th’ infernal realm
To save the Lost, and not to overwhelm.

When now the end of Agony was come,
Himself His holy Spirit from its home
Corporeal sent, to be assumed again
And live for ever which had died for Men.
The body dying, God undying rives
Returning ways from Death and Hell, whose gyves
Lie broken:—rent the rocks, and of the Just
The Souls re-animate the buried dust,—
And they arose, and from their graves came forth!

This Temple marvellous new-built on Earth
When th’elder Temple witnessed, sudden, prone
Its summit falls with noise as ’twere a groan.
Its Veil is rent in twain: its riven breast
Reveals the inner secrets, long represt,
To future man: so Moses’ Veil shall fall
From off the Law, by Christ made free to all!

Where now, O Grave, thy Victory? Where, Death,
Thy dread sting irresistible, wherewith
Thy penal reign, insatiate of woe,
Was laid on suff’ring man? Thou didst not go
To Christ, but Christ to thee—thine Overthrow!
For He alone might deathless die, Whose grasp
Upholds the world. He made not thee—of Asp
And Disobedience born: lo, now at length
Thy reign is o’er, and stricken all thy strength!

For when upon the Cross the Saviour died,
Wrath came and with a spear did pierce His side,
The Blood and Water from His Body flowed
Behold, three Gifts of Life on us bestowed:
That fount of water laves us with new birth,
These make us Temples of our God on earth,
Which rendered meet for that most high estate
He orders that we keep immaculate.

The sacred Treasure of His Body dead
Within the rock-hewn sepulchre was laid,
Ennobled then, but still more glorious made
When He arose.

Now craft a vigil kept
With sharp suspicion, lest, whilst others slept
His followers remove it, and might say
“He hath arisen on the destined day:”
Wherefore the stone they sealed and did enclose
His resting-place with guard of watchful foes.

If after all the Cross’s martyrdom,—
And wounding spear—and burial in the tomb—
Ye, Men of Slaughter, think unfinished still
Your gory deed, and deem that He, Whose will
Brought many Souls enfranchised from the grave
Cannot His own recall—then Counsel crave
For arms of guile, seal down the sepulchre,
Roll on the stone, and keep your watch a-stir.

Who shall imprison God?—before Whose might
All matter opes—Who rules the Under-night
And thunders, Sovereign, from the starry Light!
Why waste your vigils, Foes! why strive t’achieve
That proof of Faith which, proved, ye disbelieve?

This mournful Sabbath past, the dawning came
Of that glad Day which draws its lofty name
From Him, the Lord who gave it, in this wise,
To see the Earth have birth, and Christ arise.

For, as the Sabbath seventh is, this Morn
Is Head of orbèd Time, which now adorn
The glories of the King, Whose triumphs bright
Confirm anew its great primatial right.

At dawn, the Virgin Mother came, with her
Came other women to the Sepulchre
With fragrant spice and lamentable sighs,
When lo! the tomb lay void before their eyes
But full of glory: on the stone rolled nigh
There sate an Angel, missioned from on high,—
His Countenance shone like to light’ning, bright,
And like the spotless snow his raiment white,
Whose aspect did both joy and fear inspire—
For to the hostile guard it flashed as Fire,
As Light to those who wept, who learned with faith
Their Lord had triumphed o’er defeated Death!

Lament thy priests about to perish; wail
Thy people for this deed, O Israel!
Thy trump shall please no more, thine oil, nor fane.
How could thy trumpet sound, whose King is slain?
Who thine Anointed be, who’st cast the True
Anointed forth? And with what victim sue
Whose hands the martyred Shepherd’s veins imbue?
The Synagogue shall pass, in self-made gloom,
Christ takes His Church in happy love to bloom.

To Peter, fishing vainly through the night,
He bade to cast his net upon the right
Into the waters; forthwith, scarcely they
Could hawl the straining net’s wave-wand’ring prey.
Behold a type: for thus the casting line
Shall take, in precepts of our Lord divine,
And these the Apostolic hands shall bring
From the right side to be Christ’s following.

Nor lacked they glowing fire upon the strand
With fish thereon, and bread;—thence understand:
The fish for water, fire the Holy Ghost
And Christ Himself the bread: in that are lost
Our primal stain, these sanctify and feed.

Then He, their Teacher and their Host indeed,
Bade His disciples to the welcome board,
And all enjoyed the good gifts of the Lord,
And knew their Christ. Their hunger o’er, they rose.

Then Peter questioned He, if more than those
He loved Him: answered Peter, “Yea,” then He,
The Shepherd, loving His fair flock to see
Increase, did sheep and lambs to him confide
As to a workman, good in all and tried;
And thrice He asked, so Peter cleansed might be
Of all the fault of his denials three.

Then taught He, saying: “Peace be with you here,
Receive My Peace: through all the Peoples bear
My quiet Peace with holy counsels spread.
Empty the Earth of ills; one Fountain-head
Shall lave all men, and therefore shall ye call
From Earth’s extremes My scattered Nations all.”

Then, and lastly, with the intense reserve of extreme reverence, Sedulius describes

The Ascension

Thus having spoke His sacred will, the crest
Of Bethany He sought (with those most blest
Who might such triumph see with mortal eyes),
And thence sublimely passed into the skies
Ethereal—where, at the Father’s right,
He sits and rules Who, governing the height
Of Heav’n, descended to the Deep profound,
And from the Deep arose.

All, standing round
Adoring, saw Him rise beyond the bars
Of cloud and tread the luminous path of stars.

His heav’nly course in joyful hearts they bear
So all might learn: True Witnesses they were
By strength divine; though much had met their sight
They few of acts innumerable write:—
For not the world could all the books confine
Were it ordained in Holy Writ to shrine
All things accomplished by our Lord divine.²

Then to the Heaven of Heavens he shall ascend
With victory, triumphing through the air
Over his foes and thine; there shall surprise
The Serpent, Prince of Air, and drag in chains
Through all his realm, and there confounded leave.

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