O Tree of Beauty! Tree of Light!
O Tree with royal purple dight!
Elect on whose triumphal breast
Those holy limbs should find their rest!
On whose dear arms, so widely flung,
The weight of this world's ransom hung:
The price of human kind to pay,
And spoil the Spoiler of his prey.
[O Cross, our one reliance, hail!
This holy Passiontide, avail
To give fresh merit to the Saint,
And pardon to the penitent.
To Thee, Eternal Three in One,
Let homage meet by all be done;
Whom by the Cross Thou dost restore,
Preserve and govern evermore.][1]
- ↑
In the Italic Version the tenth verse of the 96th Psalm is—"Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord reigneth from the Tree." S. Justin Martyr accuses the Jews of corrupting the text; and Tertullian, in at least three places, quotes the older reading.
