And, oh! I see another day When thou shalt wondering stand, Amidst a throng who welcome thee, In heaven, the blessed land! And then the Lord, who lived on earth Clothed in humility, Shall sit upon His Father's throne In radiant majesty. The angels then shall lead thy feet Across the crystal sea; And thou shalt reach the Blessed One Who lived and died for thee. Thy grateful praise shall swell the song For then the mysteries of earth Sweet Mary, when the gate of life I shall discern thy lovely face, HAIL, INFANT MARTYRS! 107 HAIL, INFANT MARTYRS! (Salvete, flores martyrum !) The Infant Martyrs of Bethlehem. From a famous hymn of PRUDENTIUS 01 Spain (b. 348), which is used in the Latin Church on Innocents' Day, - the second day after Christmas. Christ was born on earth, that we might be born in heaven. The ancient Church called the death of the martyrs their heavenly birthday. The translation is from CHANDLER'S Hymns of the Primitive Church, 1837. See the Latin in DANIEI, I. 124, and in TRENCH, p. 121. Other English translations by J. M. NEALE ("All hail, ye infant martyr-flowers!"), and by CASWALL ("Lovely flowers of martyrs, hail!") The VENerable Bede (d. 735) wrote also a hymn for the Holy Innocents, commencing, "Hymnum canentes Martyrum" (repeating the first line in the last of every stanza); and JOHN KEBLE, in his Christian Year ("Say, ye celestial guards who wait"), which is far superior in poetic merit to that of Bede. HAIL, infant martyrs! new-born victims, hail! Hail, earliest flowerets of the Christian spring! O'er whom, like rosebuds scattered by the gale, The cruel sword such havoc dared to fling. The Lord's first votive offerings of blood, Oh! what availed thee, Herod, this thy guilt, spilt, Now mocks thy malice, and thy power defies. Yes! He alone survived, when all the ground Drank the red torrents of that carnage wild: Though many a childless mother wailed around, The hand of murder spared the Virgin's Child! O Jesu, Virgin-born! all praise to Thee, One God eternal, ever honored be, By saints on earth, and by the heavenly host. THE MATER DOLOROSA. From Mrs. H. BEECHER STOWE'S "Mary at the Cross." Religious Poems, Boston, 1867, pp. 22-27. I have selected the first and the last stanza of this beautiful poem, which may be called a worthy Protestant pendant of the Stabat Mater. O WONDROUS mother! since the dawn of time Was ever love, was ever grief, like thine? O highly favored in thy joy's deep flow, And favored, even in this, thy bitterest woe! By sufferings mighty as His mighty soul THE EPIPHANY. "THE Gentiles shall come to Thy light, and kings to the brightness of Thy rising. -ISA. lx. 3. "When they were come into the house, they saw the young Child, with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped Him; and, when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh."- MATT. ii. 11. ALMIGHTY GOD, who, by the light of a glorious star, didst make known Thine only-begotten Son to the wise men coming from afar to worship Him: mercifully grant, that all nations may come to the light of the gospel, and that we, who know Thee now by faith, may be conducted to the full vision of Thy glory in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, and the Holy Ghost, ever one od, world without end. Amen. "O JESU, mi dulcissime, Tu cordis delectatio, From ST. BERNARD. |