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Portas Vestras Aeternales

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Portatile Altare

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This is the beginning of one of the few Ascension hymns which we have in the Latin language. "Nothing is poorer," says Trench, "throughout the whole Christian Church than the hymnology of the Ascension. Even the German Protestant hymnbook, so incomparably rich in Passion and Resurrection and Pentecost hymns, is singularly ill furnished with these... The Latin forms no exception; it does not possess a single first-rate hymn on the Ascension." This hymn, which strangely enough has never found its way into any of the more modern collections of Latin hymns, runs thus:

"Portas vestras asternales,

Triummphales, principales,

Angeli, attollite.

Eja, tollite actutum,

Venit Dominuis virntum,

Rex aeternae gloria."

An English translation is given by Benedict in The Hymn of Hildebert, etc., p. 81 (N. Y. 1867); for the original copy, see Trench, Sacred Latin Poetry, p. 172 sq.