Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences/Ecce tempus est vernale

Mediæval Hymns and Sequences (1867)
edited by John Mason Neale
Ecce tempus est vernale
by Anonymous, translated by John Mason Neale
AnonymousJohn Mason Neale3025771Mediæval Hymns and Sequences — Ecce tempus est vernale1867John Mason Neale


Ecce tempus est vernale.[1]

An Easter sequence, published by Du Méril from a manuscript of the thirteenth century. The poet borrows one line from the Pange Lingua of Fortunatus, and seems, in another place, to copy Adam of S. Victor. The metre is very rare.

Spring returns with jubilation,
When the Tree of our salvation,
Chiefest of the forest nation,
Wrought the work of reparation,
Fallen man redeeming.
Through Judæa's rage infernal
From the nut breaks forth the kernel:[2]
Hangs upon the Cross the Eternal:
Trembles earth: the sun supernal
Hides in shades his beaming.
Accusation, condemnation,
Pillar, thongs, and flagellation,
Gall and bitter coronation,
This He bore, and reprobation,
Railing and blaspheming.
Jewish people, crucify Him!
Torture, scourge, and mock, and try Him!
In that precious Blood bedye Him:
That our race is ransomed by Him
Oh, how little deeming!
Theme of Israelite rejection,
Now, with joyful recollection,
Christians! hail the Resurrection;
With good deeds and hearts' affection
To the Victor teeming!




  1. In Du Méril's copy, three lines precede this. But, as they disturb the metre where they stand, and are presently repeated in other words, I take them to be merely a various reading of the third, fourth, and fifth in the finished poem.
  2. Thus Adam of S. Victor compares our Lord's Humanity to the shell; His Divinity to the kernel.

    Christ the nut; the skin surrounding
    Passion's bitterness expounding,
    And the shell His human frame.
    But in Flesh lay hid the Eternal
    And His Sweetness: and the kernel
    Rightly signifies the same.