Poema sacrum, in diem purificationis, augustissimae Dei genitricis Mariae

SIMEON TO GOD AND THE VIRGIN MARY.

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A Virgin, accompanied by her holy Husband, had brought her Child to the Temple. When the gray-haired SIMEON, venerable for his long age, hastened thirsting to the houses, he began to sing this poem with a serene face. Give, O Father, the end of Life, just as you had spoken before to the long-lived one; for we have seen the hope of our salvation with these eyes, we have sustained it with these arms. You bring back immense light, and you send it before the face of the people, so that it might clarify the obscure Gentiles with heavenly light, and new glory might grow for your people. Then, having turned to the Mother, he said: "Most holy Mother, he who cut the soft limbs of the infant born, this same sword will touch your heart likewise, O Virgin, and you will weep more than the sisters of the Trojan Hector wept. Nourishing Ceres wept for her Daughter snatched by Pluto into the shadows, though not aware of the theft. Bear such things with a clement mind, O chaste Virgin. With these rewards, heaven is bought, and the crown of the Kingdom; among the starry nobles and the holy senate, not there alone, but you will be venerated in the whole world."