“We haste to Jesus at his word, Earnest to pray and weep, Such fervent supplication still Forbids pure hearts to sleep. “Disturb our dream, thou holy Christ, Break off the night’s dark chain; Forgive us all our sin of old, And grant us light again.” And so it is still he who casts the ray of his fancy upon Bethlehem and upon the Transfigured Christ. Here is the _Quicumque Christum quaeritis_ in proof of his real genius: “O ye who seek your Lord to-day, Lift up your eyes on high, And view him there, as now ye may, Whose brightness cannot die. “How gloriously it shineth on As though it knew no dearth: Sublime and lofty, never done, Older than heaven and earth. “Thou art the very King of men, Thy people Israel’s King, Promised unto our fathers when From Abraham all should spring. “To thee the prophets testified, In thee their hearts rejoice— Our Father bids us seek thy side To hear and heed thy voice.” I have changed the two last stanzas into the second person instead of the third. Otherwise the rendering is a faithful and literal version of the hymn. This, then, is a good proof of the genuine ring of true metal to be found in Prudentius. The variety and flexibility of his measures, in spite of archaic or post-classical words and phrases, deserves our highest praise. He is a writer of the “Brazen Age,” but he has not sunk far from the “Silver,” nor exactly into the falchion sweep of the more brutal “Iron” time. Here is another of his hymns, the _Nox et tenebrae et nubila_, which has obtained a place in the Roman Breviary: “Night, clouds and darkness, get you gone! Depart, confusions of the earth! Light comes; the sky so dark and wan Brightens—it is the Saviour’s birth! “The gloom of earth is cleft in twain Struck by that sudden, solar ray; Color and life return again Before the shining face of day. “Thee, Christ, alone we seek to know, Thee, pure in mind, and plain in speech; We seek thee in our worship, so That thou canst through our senses teach. “How many are the dreams of dread Which by thy light are swept apart! Thou, Saviour of the sainted dead, Shine with calm lustre in the heart!” The same leading idea of the analogy of the natural light with the spiritual runs through the following: “Lo the golden light appears, Lo the darkness pales away Which has plunged us long in fears, Wandering in a devious way. “Now the light brings peace at last, Holds us purely as its own; All our doubts aside are cast, And we speak with holy tone. “So may all the day run on Free from sin of hand or tongue, And our very glances shun Every form and shape of wrong. “High above us One is set All our days to know and mark, And our acts he watches yet From the dawning to the dark.”