Come, O Father of the poor;
Come, O Source of bounties sure;
Come, O Sunshine of the heart!
O! thrice blessed light divine!
Come, the spirit’s inmost shrine
With Thy holy presence fill;
Of Thy brooding love bereft,
Naught to hopeless man is left;
Naught is his but evil still.
Comforter of man the best!
Making the sad soul thy guest;
Sweet refreshing in our fears,
In our labor a retreat,
Cooling shadow in the heat,
Solace in our falling tears.
Wash away each earthly stain,
Flow o’er this parched waste again,
Real the wounds of conscience sore,
Bind the stubborn will within,
Thaw the icy chains of sin,
Guide us, that we stray no more.
Give to Thy believers, give,
In Thy holy hope who live,
All Thy sevenfold dower of love;
Give the sure reward of faith,
Give the love that conquers death,
Give unfailing joy above.
Notker, surnamed the Older, or Balbulus ("the little Stammerer, "from a slight lisp in his
speech), was born about 850 of a noble family in Switzerland, educated in the convent of St. Gall,
founded by Irish missionaries, and lived there as an humble monk. He died about 912, and was
canonized in 1512.^490
He is famous as the reputed author of the Sequences (Sequentiae), a class of hymns in
rythmical prose, hence also called Proses (Prosae). They arose from the custom of prolonging the
last syllable in singing the Allelu-ia of the Gradual, between the Epistle and the Gospel, while the
deacon was ascending from the altar to the rood-loft (organ-loft), that he might thence sing the
Gospel. This prolongation was called jubilatio or jubilus, or laudes, on account of its jubilant tone,
and sometimes sequentia (Greek ajkolouqiva), because it followed the reading of the Epistle or the
Alleluia. Mystical interpreters made this unmeaning prolongation of a mere sound the echo of the
jubilant music of heaven. A further development was to set words to these notes in rythmical prose
(^490) Comp. on Notker the biography of Ekkehard; Daniel V. 37 sqq.; Koch I. 94 sqq.; Meyer von Knonau,Lebensbild des
heil. Notker von St. Gallen, and his article in Herzog 2 X. 648 sqq. (abridged in Schaff-Herzog II. 1668); and Ans. Schubiger,Die
Sängerschule St. Gallens vom 8ten his 12ten Jahrh. (Einsiedlen, 1858). Daniel II. 3-31 gives thirty-five pieces under the title
Notker et Notkeriana. Neale (p. 32) gives a translation of one sequence: Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia.