od in His poor cell:

Yet children of the sacred race
Blindly abhor the Incarnate grace:
By philtres you might deem them lulled
Or by some bacchic phrenzy dulled.

Why headlong thus to ruin stride?
If aught of soundness in you bide,
Behold in Him the Lord divine
Of all your patriarchal line.

Mark you the dim-lit cave, the Maid,
The humble nurse, the cradle laid,
The helpless infancy forlorn:
Yet thus the Gentiles' King was born!

Ah sinner, thou shalt one day see
This Child in dreadful majesty,
See Him in glorious clouds descend,
While thou thy guilty heart shalt rend.

Vain all thy tears, when loud shall sound
The trump, when flames shall scorch the ground,
When from its hinge the cloven world
Is loosed, in horrid tumult hurled.

Then throned on high, the Judge of all
Shall mortals to their reckoning call:
To these shall grant the prize of light,
To those Gehenna's gloomy night.

Then, Israel, shalt thou learn at length
The Cross hath, as the lightning, strength:
Doomed by thy wrath, He now is Lord,
Whom Death once grasped but soon restored.

XII. HYMNUS EPIPHANIAE

Quicumque Christum quaeritis,
oculos in altum tollite,
illic licebit visere
signum perennis gloriae.

Haec stella, quae solis rotam 5
vincit decore ac lumine,
venisse terris nuntiat
cum carne terrestri Deum.

Non illa servit noctibus
secuta lunam menstruam, 10
sed sola caelum possidens
cursum dierum temperat.

Arctoa quamvis sidera
in se retortis motibus
obire nolint, attamen 15
plerumque sub nimbis latent.

Hoc sidus aeternum manet,
haec stella nunquam mergitur,
nec nubis occursu abdita
obumbrat obductam facem. 20

Tristis cometa intercidat,
et si quod astrum Sirio
fervet vapore, iam Dei
sub luce destructum cadat.

En Persici ex orbis sinu, 25
sol unde sumit ianuam,
cernunt periti interpretes
regale vexillum Magi.

Quod ut refulsit, ceteri
cessere signorum globi, 30
nec pulcher est ausus suam
conferre formam Lucifer.

Quis iste tantus, inquiunt,
regnator astris inperans,
quem sic tremunt caelestia, 35
cui lux et aethra inserviunt.

Inlustre quiddam cernimus,
quod nesciat finem pati,
sublime, celsum, interminum,
antiquius caelo et chao. 40

Hic ille rex