“Christians, to the Paschal Victim”
Throughout the Middle Ages, the text and its rather eerie but joyfully-bursting-with-confidence Dorian chant tone was used as an Easter sequence to introduce the Gospel reading.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the text and its rather eerie but joyfully-bursting-with-confidence Dorian chant tone was used as an Easter sequence to introduce the Gospel reading.
Herbert lets the title of the poem lead in two different directions—to point both to the time of the Resurrection and to the mourner’s dawning realization of the significance of Christ’s rising.
’Tis the spring of souls today: Christ has burst His prison And from three days’ sleep in death As a sun has risen