Sing, o tounge of mine, the wondrous glory
Of that decisive combat long ago,
Sing the blessed Cross, that wondrous
trophy,
With skillful tongue declaim this noble
vict'ry,
How in those days mankind's true Redeemer,
Our sacrificial victim, triumph won.
That inheritance of thorns and suffering
At the dawn of time Adam had gained
When he bit the fruit forbidden to him,
By his theft the Creator defrauding,
But God, a second tree had designated,
By it that first tree's damage to repair.
Through this greatest work of our salvation,
Which God's very goodness did demand,
The predatory arts of the betrayer
By subtler arts than his were made to fall,
And a remedy came from the very
Snare by which he'd dealt the mortal wound.
And so when the sacred time was ripened,
By Providence all secretly prepared,
He was sent forth from the Father's fastness,
Born to us, the world's true Creator,
And from the holy Virgin's womb appearing,
He took our flesh, our nature on Himself.
Hear His helpless cries piercing the stable;
See Him in the manger's confines hid;
See His Virgin Mother take Him sweetly
Now with swaddling clothes the Infant binding
Hand and foot and limb, the bands encircling
The God-man, who our frail frame made His own.
Thence thirty years of hidden life completing,
Dwelling 'midst His own who knew Him not,
Of His free will did our blessed Redeemer
Give Himself up to a bitter death:
The sacrificial Lamb upon the Cross raised,
Immolated on its roughhewn beams.
Lo, the vinegar, the gall, the falling
Blows upon his brow, the nails, the lance,
The spittle; as His flesh is perforated,
The blood flows in a torrent from His wounds;
The earth, the sea, the stars, all of creation,
Washed clean now by this holy river's flood.
O Cross, o tree must true, among all others
The only that can claim nobility,
For never was a forest reared possessing
Such bough or branch or leaf or fruit or flower:
Sweet thy wood and sweet the nails affixing
This, this sweetest load that thou art bearing.
Bend, o lofty tree, thy lofty branches,
Let thy lower limbs more greatly stretch,
Let thy native strength and constitution
Little by a little be now softened,
That meekly now and gently, thou wouldst stretch Him
Upon thine arms, the dying King of Kings.
Only thou art worthy of this honor:
To bear the greatest treasure of all time,
And to make thyself a sheltered harbor
Where sailors on a shipwrecked world may hide,
With the sacred Blood thou art anointed,
Blood shed from the Lamb, on thy limbs slain.
Ever be all praise and blessing given,
To the blest and glorious Trinity,
To the Father, and the blessed Son, and
Equally unto the Paraclete,
Ever three in one, and ever reigning,
Let every creature now God's praises sing.
Amen.