4
MEDIÆVAL HYMNS.
Thou alone wast counted worthy
This world's ransom to uphold;
For a shipwrecked race preparing
Harbour, like the Ark of old;
With the sacred Blood anointed
From the smitten Lamb that roll'd.[1]
To the Trinity be glory
Everlasting, as is meet:
Equal to the Father, equal
To the Son, and Paraclete:
Trinal Unity, Whose praises
All created things repeat. Amen.
- ↑
The recension of Urban VIII. here entirely spoils the original,
Pange lingua gloriosi
Prælium certaminis,
by substituting the word Lauream. It is not to the glory of the termination of our Lord's conflict with the Devil that the poet would have us look: but to the glory of the struggle itself: as indeed he tells us at the conclusion of the verse.
