Poems 26.1–27.135

Behold, the day, returned for us as the year is completed, brings back the light made illustrious by the name of Felix. It would be the time to bring out joys in glad words, if anxious times allowed glad voices. But yet, though amid battles, this day will be for us a day of joy and peace; let horrid wars rage far off, let free peace be present in our minds. The mind does not forget the sweet habit of joy, accustomed to loosen its breast in godly vows and to rejoice chastely before the Lord on festal days. Therefore drive away importunate sadness, though in a sorrowful time; good joys, sweet words, everything godly and glad let us love on Felix's day, a birthday without end, because on it Felix was born for everlasting ages, when, having finished the age of his body, he migrated to eternal life in heaven. So let sad fears depart, and joys return to refreshed hearts; it is fitting that all sad things flee the holy day, which the glory of so great a confessor makes shine out notable among all days through all time and adorns with crowded peoples. This day, even if I were living wretchedly subject to Gothic arms, I would celebrate gladly even among the savage Alans, and if many-yoked chains pressed my neck, the enemy would not chain my mind to my captive limbs; with my heart unbound, piety would proudly trample sad slavery. Even amid barbarian chains free love would sing my vows in pleasing words. So now, though wandering rumour through various regions strikes fearful ears with terrifying reports, yet let steadfast trust in the Lord Christ strengthen us and arm our minds, fixed with upright foot, and let not black fear draw clouds over this light, which God makes serene with the heavenly honour of Felix.

As once Moses the lawgiver, in the land of the Pharian tyrant, dedicated the sacred Passover under the first law, and holy Judea then, though the impious enemy was forcing them with strong violence to hasten their flight from his home, yet, bold with the freedom of a devoted heart, and undisturbed by fear, did not abandon the commanded solemnity, but, though trembling and fleeing, performed the divine festival, feasting on the saving lamb in glad gatherings, and, already victorious by the prefigured blood of Christ, led glad dances in triumph when Pharaoh was conquered (hence, mindful of the flight, even now the Jews, keeping the nation in name only, take unleavened bread, because once, driven out, they made their flight from Egypt with unleavened loaves; with like signs now, through ancestral rites, but now through empty sabbaths, they recall the welcome traces of the ancient fear; for they practise the old law in vain under an empty image, because for us Christ, given to the Father as one victim for all, has fulfilled the true Passover, and since the body of life is present, the shadow of the figure perishes): so therefore let us now, glad in a troubled time, all keep the festival of the beloved martyr with godly mind, with united zeal of cheerful piety. Perhaps this piety will the more bring us safety, if it pleases us to lay down our cares for this purpose, to bring rejoicing hearts to the confessor, in whose honour God rejoices, because the martyr scorned his own honour for the name of Christ the Lord, cheaper to himself so as to be more precious to Christ. Therefore let it please us to rejoice in such a patron and, rejoicing, our cares set aside, to keep the birthday of the martyr laid asleep in blessed peace.

This too will be granted to the devout, if affection for joy now stands stronger than the cause of fear to dismay minds with clouded breast. Believe that the foreign peoples are to be feared not for their arms or strength; the anger of an offended God moves them because of our sins, so as to rouse sluggish hearts by fear of death to care for life. So let us fear the gentle God in the savage enemy; let fear of the enemy be far from us, the enemy we deserve to fear by not fearing God; let us at least tremble, as force compels, before him whom, relaxed in calm peace, we neglect; let us, humble in grief, appease him whom, when he brings glad things, we soon spurn, proud from prosperity itself. Let us go back over the ancient examples of our holy fathers, who, enduring deserved scourges in wars sent upon them, did not think protection was to be found in arms or walls. To hope for salvation in human resources is no salvation. For mortal things do not drive off death. So let those who have care spend this time in the care of praying to the heavenly Lord, by whom sad or glad things are prepared, who alone can grant, by his heavenly rule, that joys be renewed again when cares are driven away. For God the arbiter rules and varies the affairs of men in this way, so that clear skies always follow clouds, and the rains flee again as fair weather returns. How great is the power of prayers, what medicine it is to weep before God, let Nineveh teach, saved by mourning, and Amalek, conquered by the lavish prayer of old Moses, and cursed Haman, destroyed by the prayer of holy Esther, who, the punishments well reversed, alone drank, impious, the evils he had mixed for the saints, and on the just cross, which he had set up for the Lord's servant, himself hanged.

So let faith, resting on God, strengthen trembling hearts, and, trusting God, anticipate a secure time in a sorrowful time, because there is no cause to fear except to fear God; whoever does not fear him alone rightly fears all things. Let those trust in legions and prepare walls as refuge with rebuilt ramparts who have no trust in saving Christ; the sign of the unconquered cross and our confession fortify us, and, armed in mind by God, we do not seek arms for the body; and though we seem unarmed in our limbs, yet we bear arms, with which even in serene peace we fight in our souls against bodiless enemies. Now we need God as helper, and he alone is to be feared, without whom even arms fall, through whom even arms are made firm; he himself will be a tower for you within the walls, he who without walls will be a wall. Let us go back from here over the deeds of the fathers, recorded in the sacred books, and see who had the better protection: those whom a city surrounded with great walls, without God, or those whom, without city walls, divine power fenced about with allied favour. I speak of that city which fierce Jesus destroyed, whose own name was changed into a name of power, which the leader did not subdue in the usual manner of warfare, toiling, as is usual, in a long siege; but, brandishing weapons by divine help through sacred mysteries, not plying them, an army with silent arms, he went round it with hands at rest, and for seven days repeated sevenfold circuits about the walls. He took them captive by the power of the mighty number and by the priests' trumpets with dreadful blast, imitating the thunderbolts of anger above.

Then the people who trusted in riches and city perished, with tombs mingled among their houses. Only Rahab the harlot, who kept chaste faith in a wicked nation, not trusting to escape by her walls, but by God's kindness, obtained the reward of her kindness, by which she was hostess to the Lord's servants under a safe roof, and, hiding them dutifully, deceived the wicked citizens, deceitful with a good deceit, lying with faithful mind. Because she had been faithful to the godly guests, unfaithful to the profane citizens, she soon found everything again, kindly given, in the Lord: life, homeland, home, scorned when God was preferred; if she had placed her protection in the city, she would have fallen, mixed in her native ruins, undefended by God; but the mystic harlot, foreseeing that Christ would buy the polluted nations with blood, marked her own roof with a scarlet fleece and received her salvation as her homeland perished, signifying that those are to be sheltered as the world falls whom the blood of the unconquered cross marks. Learn from this how much the blood itself avails, whose image saved. It has always availed for every good to trust in Christ, to entrust all things to the God of powers, to set God alone as the sum of all things; such faith has always availed above all arms; by such strength that little boy was great, who, stronger with arms scorned, struck down the armed giant with the power of a flint. We have known arms always to need faith, never faith to need arms. The faithful rod broke the sea, which drowned the arms empty of faith with their wicked prince. Kindly faith has clothed even women with manly courage, by which a holy woman killed terrible Sisera, his temples pierced with a stake;

Judith, by the cunning art of chastity, mocked Holofernes, who terrified great peoples far and wide, she who, not polluted in the impure bed, victorious, routed the barbarian camp when its leader was beheaded. Naked faith is armed by God; by the power of faith Hezekiah with a few thousands was stronger than that Sennacherib, whose kingdom was Babylon and rich Nineveh. He had moved the Assyrian powers and the Median kingdoms, and, trampling all the kingdoms round with great legions, was making for the sacred city of the Lord and attacking it alone with the whole mass of war. While he was preparing this, his impious wishes held back by other wars as God hindered, he sent ahead letters harsh with proud threats, which Hezekiah, grieving, took and brought before the Lord at the altar, and with tears poured out, washing the savage words as he read them, prostrate and praying with the people in mourning, he moved God, and by one prayer, victor over so grave a destruction, though absent he struck the Assyrians, God fighting for him, earning so great a saving that he should not even see the enemy he conquered. For after Hezekiah's complaining tears had passed beyond the stars, and complaints sent from a humble heart above the stars had struck the ears of the highest Father with godly voice, when the high doors of heaven opened, there glides down a winged angel, drawing a fragrant air where he glides, and, armed with the sword of the word, strikes the impious camp, and, triumphing in a silent slaughter of sleepers, gave a hundred and eighty thousand to one death, and one night was the witness of so great a war. In the morning the king rises, still threatening, and soon, wretched, his army destroyed, flees with a thin column, his arms emptied, fleeing Hezekiah, separated far off in another region, whom just now, as if present, he had threatened with chains.

Then, as Isaiah was intercessor for Hezekiah, so may Felix be for us with the Lord at this time. Let us cast our cares and fears on him and pour them over onto him. Our weight will be a light burden for him, because what is a burden to the small is light to the great. So God himself bore the sins of men and did not take them in, and, suffering death, did not bear guilt on the cross. He lost his life that on the cross he might restore mine; he was made guilty, lest I be guilty; among the wicked he died condemned, to separate us from the wicked. By a godly death the Lord died for me, that I may live for him and deserve always to live the life of him who lives. So the martyrs are the more important members in his venerable body, among whom Felix, of notable strength, shines among the sacred lights of the divine head, rightly strong with God, because they suffered things nearest to Christ's. Let us run together to this patron with united hope; he will receive our complaints with calm kindness, and while we celebrate his birthday rejoicing, he will kindly support our prayers with his high merits, and will weep for us in turn, because with dedicated mind we rejoice for him. This is no new care for the saints, to entreat God for sick sinners, and by the force of good merit to overcome bad merit. We read that Moses, praying when the people sinned, quenched the heavy anger of the eternal avenger, and that, when the fiery rain flooded the Pentapolis, Lot, fleeing, set little Zoar apart from wicked Sodom and, mighty by chaste prayer, freed the city and took it as chosen for his home, because in a modest dwelling he had remained upright, an inhabitant of an incestuous land, mingled with Sodom's houses but a stranger in morals.

Why should I speak of heaven shut and opened again by the prayers of Elijah, and of famine remaining on the earth and salvation returning at the holy-speaking mouth of the lofty prophet? As the old age once had these, so now let our safety, having received Felix as its lot, ask for all it dares, and hope for all it desires, trusting in such a patron. Holy Felix, beloved of God, right hand of God, be, I pray, a most fortified tower for us. For the God of Abraham is your God, and the God of Isaac and the God of Israel is your God; he who divided the Red Sea and sweetened the bitter spring, he who gave manna from heaven, gave quail by the south wind, and watered the thirsty ground by striking the rock, he himself is your God, who went before the people following him through the deserts, and by the alternating law of time changed the column held out before them by night and by day, and who for forty years in the deserts fed the people with angels' bread from heaven and refreshed them in their thirst with a rock broken into rivers. Ask, I pray, that Christ may come calmly to our side; he himself is your God, by whom mighty Joshua commanded sun and moon to stand for his triumphs; and when the Lord has assented to the prosperity of the Roman empire for you, command the serving elements, Felix, to serve our good; let the day go on lengthened with the stars standing still; let the sun stand for you, and let the moon, in concord, hold still, keeping the stars suspended in a fixed course, until Roman victory reaches its end.

As in Assyria Daniel, victorious by poured-out prayer, tamed the lions at Babylon, so for you, Felix, let savage barbarism be tamed as Christ breaks it, and let the captives lie around your footsteps. So once the beasts lay around the prophet and soothed the feet of the one praying with kindly tongues, God changing their nature, so as to condemn men savage in bitter mind by the human peace of beasts. So also the flame confounded the cruel tyrant, as he watched the furnaces serve the holy boys, and the men he had condemned sing, while his ministers burned. How could wretched kings defend themselves, who raged with minds so degenerate from humanity against those whom both wildness and flame spared? But as, while the boys sang eternal hymns in response, a dewy wind scattered the kindled fires, so may the grace of Felix with calm breath, as God breathes on us, temper the fires of war for us, and, repressing the conflagrations that have risen in the lands of Romulus, cool our anxious heat now with calm peace, and release weary hearts, our cares extinguished. But why, foolish, as if I were an inexperienced guest of yours and forgetful of you, do I appeal to you by the examples of the ancient fathers to give help in our needs, help which, God granting it to you, you will make come to us? The examples of your own powers suffice me, Felix, nor does Christ pour out heavenly gifts to you more poorly than to the fathers, whose noble offspring you are.

For you, Felix, are equally a son of the patriarchs and of the apostolic stock, no degenerate heir of so great a seed; as a confessor of the holy law and of faith together, you, holy one, bear signs rivalling your fathers' virtues, and if the form of your works is different, your virtue is not unlike; grace is diverse among us, glory equal, since there is one fountain for all the saints and a common kingdom of God; the works of the prophets and the sacred martyrs are not one, as the times were different, nor do deeds distant in their causes agree in their signs; they differ among themselves by the heavenly gifts of God, equal in merits. If Felix did not do or suffer all the same things that Daniel did or suffered, and the den did not hold him, nor did terrible lions surround him, neither did Daniel suffer for his Master's name the same things, scourges, chains, fears, and the night of a black prison, which Felix bore, horrible as they were. He who shut the beasts' jaws, making them gentle to the praying prophet, who made the fires cold for the praying boys and gave them moist garments in the midst of the furnaces, he himself has given Felix, mighty by lofty right, to command the pestilent legions of Satan, in which he restrains all beasts and fires. For what serpent, what beast is not in that crowd? In short, I shall tell one of many, so that from one you may learn that the demons have bestial senses. A certain man, not long ago, was distended by so monstrous a demon that he not only would consume in an easy gulp the familiar food of men, even if a table were given heaped with much fare, but also would tear apart with rabid mouth hens snatched from the doorsteps of the inhabitants as soon as he had seized them, and devour them uncooked, the feathers not choking him.

Moreover he thirsted for the gore of carcasses, and licked bones, chewing the thrown-out corpses of cattle, a foul table-companion of dogs. This man, delivered just now from so great a demon, see, now sober, works a rented little field far away, and, God caring for him in the holy hall of Felix, restored to himself, he shows by a clear enough sign that Felix, strong by merits and the name of Christ, tames monstrous beasts and conquers flames. Say, you who are present as witnesses of the works of Felix, does he not tame beasts and fires, when he presses the demons who break souls with vices and bodies with diseases, who burn man with flaming desires and devour him with sins? Tormenting and putting these to flight, does he not tame beasts and fires? Felix, the fiery avenger of the fire-bearing troop, roars and crushes the guilty flame with the fire of God; the fire of darkness is conquered by the godly fire of light; the demon flees, and God enters; and the man becomes a house well turned, a happier hall, with God as possessor, having disowned the foul tenant. God is a white and healing fire; with this fire my Felix glows, to quench the kindled demon and to cool the released man of the burning enemy. Wondrous hand and mighty rod and lofty power! Felix intervenes within one body among spirits mingled in a hostile pact, in the hidden places of the breast, and, finer than they, divides the slender breaths, separating the soul from the demon, so that, the demon expelled, the mind, free, receives the man again. This work is equal to that work by which the image of the cross changed bitter Marah into drink for the people by the sweetness of the sacred wood.

So Felix, mighty in piety because he is a noble confessor of the lofty cross, changes the man himself like the bitter cups of Marah. He who, just now swollen with a bitter demon, belched a viper's taste through foaming lips, often leaping up with heaving of his sides and sobbing of his wide throat, belched bitter blasts, now, wholly himself, a man returned to his own control, tastes sweet, breathes soundly, and speaks calmly. So the right hand of power girds Felix too. Hence, mighty, he devours the various arts of the prince of darkness as the rod of Moses devoured the magicians' serpents. See, we perceive equal riches of the heavenly Lord present for the merit of Felix, and the forms of works agreeing, and that whatever proofs of God the holy fathers produced in the body, Felix, living in Christ without the body, performs, and, mighty in mind with notable soul, while the bones of his laid-down body rest, shows forth by bright signs, before the day of return, what crown he will wear for his merits when Felix stands restored to life in his whole body. All the saints will shine, each with his own light, equal with unlike splendour, nor, with Christ as judge, will one grow at the expense of another's merit; Christ will be kingdom, light, life, crown for all. Behold the teachers of the old and new testaments, distinct in act but yoked in honour, in whom one wisdom gave twin laws. And so equal glory weighs out varied powers. Peter did not break the sea with a rod, nor did Moses walk on the liquid of the sea; yet one honour shines for both, since there was one author for both of dividing the waters with a rod and treading the waves with feet, who is the God of the old saints, and himself the God of the new;

by whom the law was given, from him grace came; he who is the God of Daniel and of the three boys is himself the God of Felix, nor is God himself less in holy Felix, through whom he exercises good gifts and healing powers on land and sea. For every day we are witnesses, from everywhere, in frequent gatherings, either of the healthy paying thankful vows or of the sick seeking and feeling various healings. We see too many brought from a foreign shore, prostrate before the sacred hall of the holy martyr, while they give thanks, telling the dangers they endured, testifying that, their ship dashed by strong storms, they were snatched away, God pitying them, and by the very hand of Felix leading them out had emerged from the depth of the sea and gained, calm, the safety despaired of, since by Felix's merits both waters and flames yield. To be silent about past proofs of his mighty merit, we know by experience; fear from recent terror still makes our remembering minds tremble as we recall the fire we endured when our roofs were almost consumed; though the flame is extinguished, its traces are still warm in our minds and heap up love for great Felix, whom we saw, almost present in bodily act, setting his hands against the flames and guarding our thresholds joined to his; the flame, almost touching them, feared them, as if terrified by the face of the saint standing in the way, and, driven back from seizing the roof of our house, burned itself out close by in the ruin of a neighbouring hut. I shall tell wonders: the air stood motionless without breeze, nor did the wind give any trembling to the leaves of the groves, so that the swift fire could not advance further, flying through the joined beams of the neighbouring houses, but, deserted by the falling winds, the flame refused to go on and died, weak, its fuel consumed.

In like manner, Felix, release us by your help from dangers, and let evils not draw near our houses, and, driven back by you, let horrid wrath with its bloody scourge sound far away. Put on also, for keeping wars away, that power by which, when a river flowing wrongly down from the neighbouring mountains, swollen by sudden rains, overflowing with its torrent, often rushed headlong upon your thresholds so that it violently shook with vast waters the dwellings joined to your roofs, you, turning the stream, made it change its ways, so that now a new channel leads it, raging, through an unaccustomed region, avoiding our roofs with a distant course: so now turn away from our places the battles coming in a war-sounding river. Let the impious hand keep off the sacred borders, whose rampart is your grace, and let the enemies fear your hall as the demons do, and let not blood violate what flame and wave have fled.

Be born, day, who are always restored to me with slow rising and soon hasten to your setting and flee, slow to return, winged to depart. For I wait for you, lingering through long times, while the struggling wheel of the slow year turns, with my breast stirred by intent vows. How I should wish that you shone for me all the days, or, whenever you come, that you so made up for your delays that you could prolong the light to summer's length, or match that day which, the stars bidden to stand, wearied the world with long light, doubling human labours with night put off. Now the law of winter time steals you from us, dear day, with too swift an air, and winter, quick in light, slow in darkness, compels the shortened hours. But it is well that for you, Felix, to whom grace is perpetual, the sun shines as Christ illumines, and he himself flashes his own radiance on his birthday, nor is the splendour of eternal honour ever buried in setting falls. Go, fugitive day, slip away; I will not call you back, nor will I now complain that you are short, because without you Felix always shines present for me with unquenched light. If the birthday is absent, it is more that he himself, the light of this birthday, is continually present. For he does not become holy by a day, he whose honour is the cause of celebrating the day. But if it is the crowd that makes the birthday surpass the other days, running to the sacred thresholds more densely than usual, we see Felix's birthday kept almost always with a crowded people. For what day, I ask, rises empty of vows or thin in great throngs? Yet I shall confess that this day rightly retains a special honour, on which once, his age completed, it fell to Felix to lay down his earthly garb and be called to the lofty stars, to be kept in the blessed seat.

For this reason confirms faith, which marks off times with sure titles and designates sacred days through yearly festivals, on which the ancient fathers once trembled at the Lord's miracles, dreadful to the wicked and always to be celebrated by the godly, because they were helpful to the saints and hard on the wicked. Witness the land of Memphis, and the sea then made land for the saints, sea for the wicked, and the other things like these done by God in Egypt and in many regions, recalled by us with remembering love. So likewise the divine gifts of Christ are celebrated: as the day venerable to all on which God, born of a virgin, took up man for all, and then the day on which the magi, bringing mystic gifts with a star as guide, saw the boy as suppliants, or rather the day on which the trembling Jordan washed him as John dipped him, him who hallowed all waters for the re-creating of the nations, or whether the same day is more sacred by that sign by which God first did a work, when, the stream turned, he changed water into the nectar of very sweet wine. What of the Paschal feast? For certainly the church in all regions proclaims the Passover continually every day, witnessing the death of the Lord on the cross, and from the cross the life of all; yet this great sacrament of great kindness toward all the whole world everywhere adores every year, in the prescribed month, with equal service, celebrating the eternal King with his body restored to life. A day follows this solemnity (we count seven weeks, and the festal light returns for the peoples), on which once the Holy Spirit, sent down from high heaven, divided tongues with fiery light, and he, one God, ran through various mouths and sounded tongues of every kind from one mouth, granting all to bring out voices unknown to them, so that each recognized his own nation in a foreign mouth, and did not know the foreign tongue in his own mouth.

The barbarian himself sang words known to others but not known to himself, speaking what was foreign to his own people; but in all one Spirit praised one God with varied voice. As one who makes music on lyres with the stroke of one plectrum moves discordant strings, or one who rubs his lips on the woven reeds blowing through them, though he brings one song from one mouth, does not sound one note, but tempers varied sounds with masterly art, and governs the shrill holes with breath and with mobile fingers closes and opens them, so that the sweet breath, modulated, may go and return in quick turns through the holes, running in an airy course, and the animated pipe may unfold uninterrupted songs: so God, the one modulator and arbiter of all-sounding harmony, which he moves through all the bodies of things, God, maker of all nature and art, in every work fountain and end, making good things and keeping those made, himself abiding in himself in mutual kindness, in which the Father reigns in the Word, the Son in the Father, without whom nothing was made, through whom all things sown consist in him, the same who renews all things by the Word as beginning, he who, by the cross purple with the dye of precious blood, lofty in winged ascent, penetrated the heights on a cloud, flying above the Cherubim, and sat at the right hand of the Father, and thence poured out heavenly gifts on his own: the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Only-begotten and the Father, who, himself God coming from God, though present everywhere, yet rushed down there, fiery, with a visible descent, where the harmonious gathering of the apostolic company was met, and soon, with a new sound, as many men from every nation had gathered from the city, sat like a flame upon all, and at once in all, discordant with one breath, as one who plays lyric strings with an easy plectrum, sang the same proclamations with divided tongues, striking varied voices through human instruments.

When such drunkenness filled the chosen minds, drunken hearts belched out sacred praises to God with fasting throat; who will pity me and give me to drink from that river which sobers by drunkenness? So, as the Lord marked the sky with stars and the fields with flowers and the years with seasons, so he marked the seasons themselves with festal days, so that sluggish natures, at least when a distinction is made after an interval, might gladly perform the holy solemnities with returning vow, and idle minds might through the yearly festivals be prepared for the Lord, since it irks them to serve justice continually undefiled, and for those used to sinning it is labour to refrain from sin. One runs down every valley; there is no escaping up an ascent by running. Hence the way of falling is more downhill, and the way of life harder; the one roomy for many, the other steep for few. Hence the good Lord, to cover all with the wings of kindness, gave fitting intervals of holy days for the weak to strive toward the citadel of virtue, so that at least by moderate services they may grasp the hem of Christ's garments, and even the fringe may heal those who, not wholly exiled from the region of salvation, stable within the stalls of everlasting life, far from the first rank, not far from the second. For the first grade of life is to weave all days with continual goodness, and through all time to celebrate the sacred Passover of Christ with chaste worship. But if a crop mixed with thistles sprouts for me and the thorn of earthly toil goads my uncultivated heart, let me at least be eager to offer myself to the Lord on festal days, so that at least with part of myself I may touch the borders of life, lest I be dragged with my whole self into the fellowship of death.

So although we, who dwell nearby at a close station, enjoy the continual honour of our holy patron, whom a devoted crowd always celebrates even apart from his birthday, yet, that we, his own home-born servants, may be relaxed from cares through our master's festivals and sing our vows, I shall go as leader of this joy for the psalm-singing brothers and lead the allied column like a standard-bearer. For though crowds from various regions of the people pour out godly joys today with like vows, yet it befits me to exult more abundantly and more notably on this day, because no one is more bound as debtor to him, for whom, under a more special private star, this day has borne so great a patron without end. Hail, dear day, hail, my light, hail, always festal for me; but in this year you have risen and shone more brightly for me, because with Felix's honour you bring back Niceta, so that by the love of two saints I may have a double birthday today, on which, celebrating the departure of the martyr taken up in body and the return of the bishop, here present in body, I worship, filled, receiving Christ, who dwells in my humble breast. Let my soul now exult and declare what once the bride sang, loving, to the loving Lord: “The rain is gone, winter has departed, the voice of the turtledove sounds in our land, the vine gives its fragrance,” and we marvel at the lilies of heaven flowering on earth. Whence suddenly, I pray, with the season turned, does the year make spring, and flowers are seen in icy fields? Niceta is present, joined as companion to the friends of Christ the Lord; hence winter flowers, hence on every side a quickening breeze breathes fragrant vapours on us; this comes from the heart of a field blessed by the Spirit.