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Paschal Song

Sedulius, tr. Sigerson, 1922; selections

When Gentiles study their vain themes to raiseIn sounding words, and pomp of purple …

When Gentiles study their vain themes to raise
In sounding words, and pomp of purple phrase,
Assume the tragic mask, or comic mood,
Or what of varied verse may seem them good,
And search the soilèd scrolls of traitor Time
For murk memorials of storied crime,
Shall I—though standing in the sacred choir
Where song celestial mates with David’s lyre—
Shall I be mute? nor striking Judah’s string
The wond’rous work of Christ the Saviour sing?
Whom all things vouch on earth, who thunders Lord
On every sense, by all the heart adored,
Who heart and sense themselves bestowed, and Whom
All Nature serves!

He, by eternal doom
Supreme, and with His Father One, by right,
Apex of All, Creation’s Crown, the Same in Light,
In Splendour, Virtue, Power, and Timeless Sway,
Consort of Glory, Kingship, and all Might,
In Majesty Alike! Behold the Way
Which leads to safety and the Paschal Day!

This theme shall be my song: Turn every mind
And heal, at last, the wounded hearts and blind
Which mortal ill, which Attic thralldom keeps
In fond delusions whilst the venom creeps,
Forsake Cecropian mire at length, and draw
The odorous air of health from Living Law.

Why, Sons of Theseus! wander in the maze
Of blind Daedalean caverns, void of rays?
Why choose the barren, where the good vine grows,
And for grey lavender neglect the rose,—
Give stone and brass in fanes profanely faith
And bond your minds to mute metallic death?
No more abide in squalid dust of fields
And sterile strands, where arid earth now yields
No fruit; nor longer tear from gory ground
The bitter herbs that feed ye not but wound
For feast Tartarean fit.

Far rather steer
O’er welcome waters that will float you here
To meads delightful mid the forest’s flower,
Where home is blessed by God’s supernal power;
Where sparkling streamlets animate the path
And lave the soil, that never prickle hath,
So that to barns an hundredfold it yields
When brimming harvest fills the happy fields.

Eternal God omnipotent! The One
Sole Hope of worlds, Author and Guard alone
Of heaven and earth Thou art, whose high behest
Forbids the tempest’s billow-bearing breast
The land to whelm—which fires the orb of noon,
And fills the crescent of the milder moon;
Who’st meted forth alternate day and night
And numbered all the stars—their places bright,
Their signs, times, courses only known to Thee—
Who hast to many forms, most wondrously,
The new earth shaped, and given to dead dust life:
Who hast lost Man restored, for fruit of strife
Forbid, bestown on him a higher food,
And healed the Serpent’s sting by sacred blood:

Who hast, when men (save those borne in the Ark)
Were tombed in floods of whelming waters dark
From one sole stock again the race renewed
(A sign that sin-slain man, through noble wood
Once more should be redeemed), and sent to save
One Fount baptismal all the world to lave!

Ope me the way that to the City bright
Leads forth; let thy Word’s lamp be light
To guide my footsteps through the narrow gate,
Where the Good Shepherd feeds His sheep elate:
There first the Virgin’s white Lamb enterèd
And all His fair flock followed where He led!

With Thee how smooth the way: for Nature all
Thine empire owns! Thou speak’st, her fetters fall
And all her wonted shows new forms assume:
The frozen fields will into verdure bloom
And winter gild with grain: if Thou but will
’Mid budding Spring the swelling grape shall fill,
And sudden labour tread the bursting vine.
All seasons answer to the call Divine!
So ancient Faith attests, so tell the hours—
No time can change, no age abate Thy powers!

Whereof to sing, in little part, afraid
I seek, as entering a great forest-glade
One strives an over-arching bough to reach.
What were an hundred tongues, an iron speech,
Or what were man an hundredfold to show
Things more than all the lucid stars that glow,
And all the sands where all the oceans flow!¹

Say, Nature! these beholding, where thy laws?
Who took these many rights from thee? What cause
Bade Death ignore its prey? What potent breath
Blessed barrenness with fruit, and moved to death
The willing ram? What changed to statued salt
The peccant spouse? What told the flames to halt
At leaves unharmed, the rod to writhe a snake,
The parting sea a pathway dry to make,
Dews manna yield, and arid rocks a stream,
The lowly ass to speak? What stayed the beam
Of rapid-running hours, made birds delight
A man to feed, and who, in chariot bright
Conveyed him o’er the starry heaven’s height?
Who made the dying King live lustres three,—
Leviathan—a Refuge in the sea,
A Monarch mate with beasts? Who could assuage
Th’ indomitable lions’ furious rage?

Who, but The Maker!—Whose are all things seen,
All unseen things, whose Word is the machine,
His works obey him, and His empire still
Delights to follow at its Sovereign’s will.

Ah, hapless hearts of men that evermore
Shape out some foolish figment to adore,
Your Maker flee and what you make implore!
What witless folly takes the senses now
That full-grown Man before a bird, a cow,
Half-human hound, or twisted snake shall bow?²

Some venerate the sun, because ’tis seen
To shed clear rays upon the earth serene
And light the farther pole—itself would show
By change and scattered fires its place to know—
A servant, not a God—that, ordered right
Must rise and set, and then give way to night,
And is not everywhere, in every clime,
Nor has it always been, throughout all time.

So some the moon adore, whose changing horn
Now fills, now fails; and some the stars, that morn
Will put to paling flight:—these worship fire
Those founts, but dare not with joined rite conspire,
The Fount might dry before the Fire-God’s frown,
Or else, if stronger, might the Fire-God drown!

Some, too, build altars at the roots of trees
Bring food, and then beseech the boughs to please,
Rule o’er their homes beloved, their fertile farms,
Keep offspring, wives, and fortunes free from harms.

O Wooden! praying wood, to deafness cry!
And seek from dumbness a benign reply!
What god shall govern, when to help the house,
Ye prop the sinking roof with broken boughs,
Or feed the fire with chips for your carouse?

Some worship herbs and, planting them, like pease,
Go water well their dry divinities—
Sure, servers of transplanted Gods be these!

I shame to mention more, in sacred song,
Ev’n in rebuke, lest brambles so should wrong
The lilies fair, and thistles raise their heads
Amid the purple bloom of violet beds,
Enough we have of follies in the heap
To move a laugh, or rather make us weep.

And now it joys to journey forth—to climb
The shining steps that mount the Hill Sublime,—
We haste unto the City of our love
For Freedom: bright, its royal halls above
The gold domes gleam afar; the gates apart
Do welcome those who come, nor need depart—
All portals ope to knocking of a heart!

Behold the corner stone once spurned with slight,
Now set on high, most wondrous to the sight—
How sweet Thy yoke, Thy burthen, Lord, how light!

The walls of Pluto’s palace are in view
The gate and iron arch above it, stands
On anvils labor’d by the Cyclops’ hands.

Whilst we, discoursing, make our path more light,
With comrade Hope and Faith we climb the height:—
The topmost Citadel is reached, and there,
See all the sacred Banners, high in air;
That sparkle with the Cross! Lo, glittering
How shine the lovely Towers of The King!
The Master-trumpet sounds; the Gates invite
The soldiers to march in—they pass who fight.
On you the Eternal Gate doth call, whose voice
Is Christ’s, with golden guerdon to rejoice
In life perpetual, who fought his fight,
His weapons used, and bore His Symbol bright.

Thy Symbol and Thine arms, dear King, I’ve borne,
The least of all Thy hosts I wait, war-worn.
Here, in Thine own abode, within Thy wall,
Grant me a little Home amongst them all;
That, in Thy holy places I, Thy guest,
May dwell and be on the white roll confest,
Last ranked of all the City of the Blest.

Great things I ask, but Thou dost greatly grant
Whom little hope offends and not large want.

Incline, O Christ! Thou who, to make, through love,
A dead world live, descending from above—
To things terrene and human form hast deigned—
This nature bearing, yet Thine own retained.

So Matthew, first of men, declares to all:
So Mark, whose voice thrills like the lion’s call:
So Luke, a young ox which the ark doth bear:
So John, whose eagle-cry ascends the air;³
Four chiefs who sing Thy glory with one voice,
As the four seasons bid the world rejoice.
So shine the Twelve, the apex numeral,
As months, as hours, that make the year in all
For Thee, an Army Apostolical.

Recalling now the birth of Ancient Death
I haste with eyes serene, to Life’s new breath,
Long joys to reap: who sowed in Adam tears
Shall at Christ’s coming put aside our fears,
And walk, exulting, with our harvest-ears.⁴

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