Haste, All Who 'Mid Life's Thorny Ways

For the Feast of the Transfiguration and the Solemnity of the Epiphany

Quicúmque Christum quæritis from Cathemerinon by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

Translation: Rev. Professor Thomas J. Potter, All Hallows College, Dublin

Source: Orby Shipley, Annus Sanctus: Hymns of the Church for the Ecclesiastical Year. Vol. 1. (London and New York: Burns and Oates, 1884), pp. 199-200.

Haste, all who 'mid life's thorny ways,
    Sure comfort seek and peace and rest ;
Haste, all by burning care weighed down,
    By sharp and bitter pain opprest.

To Jesu haste, the spotless Lamb,
    The Lamb by love for sinners slain,
Haste to his meek and wounded heart,
    The solace sweet for every pain.

Oh, list those sweet and loving words,
    His mercy list, his ardent call:
'To me, poor weary wanderers, haste ;
    Haste all opprest by sin's dark thrall.'

Oh, say what heart more sweet, more meek,
    Than his, who nailed unto the cross,
Doth for his murderers mercy beg,
    To ward away their souls' sad loss.

O heart, the joy of heavenly hosts,
    Of man the hope, the only stay,
Drawn by thy sweet and loving voice,
    To thee we haste and humbly pray.

Oh, free us from our sinful stains,
    And wash us in thy saving gore,
A new heart give to all who now
    With weeping hearts thy love implore.

Note from Shipley:

229. Quicumque Christum quaeritis. Vespers Hymn from the Franciscan Breviary. Haste, all who 'mid life's thorny ways. Professor Potter. 199

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