Quaenam lingua tibi, o Lancea, debitas

What tongue, illustrious Spear, can duly sound
Thy praise, in Heav’n or earth?
Thou, who didst open that life-giving wound,
From whence the Church had birth.

From Adam, sunk in an ecstatic sleep,
Came Eve divinely framed;
From Christ,—his Spouse; when from that wound so deep
The Blood and Water stream’d.

And equal thanks to you, blest Nails, whereby,
Fast to the sacred Rood,
Was clench’d the sentence dooming us to die,
All blotted out in blood.

To Him who still preserves in highest Heaven
The wounds which here He bore,
Be glory, with th’ eternal Father, given,
And Spirit evermore.