Crux Fidelis
Venantius Fortunatus
About the text: Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530–600) was a poet in the Merovingian court and wrote many hymns before becoming the bishop of Poitiers. His hymn, “Crux Fidelis,” was an inspiration for Thomas Aquinas’ hymn, “Pange Lingua,” and is still used today in the Roman liturgy for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and Good Friday. Here we present an English translation by Edward Caswall, a former Anglican clergyman who was received into the Catholic Church in 1847 and joined John Henry Newman’s Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Birmingham.
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Faithful Cross, O Tree all beauteous!
Tree all peerless and divine!
Not a grove on earth can show us
Such a leaf and flower as thine.
Sweet the nails, and sweet the wood,
Laden with so sweet a load!
Sing, my tongue, the Saviour’s glory;
Tell his triumph far and wide;
Tell aloud the famous story
Of his Body crucified;
How upon the Cross a Victim,
Vanquishing in death, He died.
Faithful Cross, O Tree all beauteous!
Tree all peerless and divine!
Not a grove on earth can show us
Such a leaf and flower as thine.
Eating of the Tree forbidden,
Man had sunk in Satan’s snare,
When his pitying Creator
Did this second Tree prepare;
Destined, many ages later,
That first evil to repair.
Sweet the nails, and sweet the wood,
Laden with so sweet a load!
Such the order God appointed
When for sin He would atone;
To the Serpent thus opposing
Schemes yet deeper than his own;
Thence the remedy procuring,
Whence the fatal wound had come.
Faithful Cross, O Tree all beauteous!
Tree all peerless and divine!
Not a grove on earth can show us
Such a leaf and flower as thine.
So when now at length the fulness
Of the sacred time drew nigh,
Then the Son who moulded all things
Left his Father’s throne on high;
From a Virgin’s womb appearing,
Clothed in our mortality.
Sweet the nails, and sweet the wood,
Laden with so sweet a load!
All within a lowly manger,
Lo, a tender babe He lies!
See his gentle Virgin mother
Lull to sleep his infant cries!
While the limbs of God Incarnate
Round with swathing-bands she ties.
Faithful Cross, O Tree all beauteous!
Tree all peerless and divine!
Not a grove on earth can show us
Such a leaf and flower as thine.
Thus did Christ to perfect manhood
In our mortal flesh attain:
Then of his free choice He goeth
To a death of bitter pain;
And as a lamb, upon the altar
Of the Cross, for us is slain.
Sweet the nails, and sweet the wood,
Laden with so sweet a load!
Lo, with gall his thirst He quenches!
See the thorns upon his brow!
Nails his tender flesh are rending!
See, his side is open’d now!
Whence, to cleanse the whole creation,
Streams of blood and water flow.
Faithful Cross, O Tree all beauteous!
Tree all peerless and divine!
Not a grove on earth can show us
Such a leaf and flower as thine.
Lofty Tree, bend down thy branches,
To embrace thy sacred load;
Oh, relax the native tension
Of that all too rigid wood;
Gently, gently bear the members
Of thy dying King and God.
Sweet the nails, and sweet the wood,
Laden with so sweet a load!
Tree, which solely wast found worthy
Earth’s great Victim to sustain;
Harbour from the raging tempest!
Ark, that saved the world again!
Tree, with sacred Blood anointed
Of the Lamb for sinners slain.
Faithful Cross, O Tree all beauteous!
Tree all peerless and divine!
Not a grove on earth can show us
Such a leaf and flower as thine.
Honour, blessing everlasting,
To th’immortal Deity!
To the Father, Son, and Spirit,
Praise be paid co-equally!
Glory through the earth and Heaven
To Trinity in Unity!
Sweet the nails, and sweet the wood,
Laden with so sweet a load!