Here is the seventh poem in Georg Fabricius’s hymn cycle. Here is a link to the sixth. The meter and rhyme-scheme is the same as the others.
Nox intempesta.
TERTIA PARS NOCTIS.
Historia coram Pontificibus.
CHRISTUS VINCTUS, ET adductus ad Annam.
Zach. XIII. Framea suscitare super pastorem meum, et super virum cohaerentem mihi.
HORA DUODECIMA.
Lurcatur Annas belluo
Insomnis in convivio,
Christi prehensi innoxium
Haurire laetus sanguinem.
Christus rogantis ebrium
Verbo retundit impietum,
Prorumpit hinc sus aulicus
In ora compingens manus.
O Christe, solve vincula
Nostri reatus omnia,
Queis daemon et mors tristibus
Nos alligavit nexibus.
Ab aulicorum verbere
Tuos ministros assere,
Cum nomen ob tuum pia
Laborat innocentia.
In English:
The Dead of Night.
The Third Part of the Night.
The History before the Priests.
Christ Bound and Led to Annas.
Zechariah 13: “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man who cleaves to me.”
Up all night, Annas gluts himself,
A centaur at a Lapith feast,
Well pleased to drink the blood of Christ,
Unjustly dragged before this beast.
Christ with the Word repels with ease
The high priest’s soused assault. At this
A porcine palace guard insults
The Word’s mouth with unholy fists.
O Christ, you know our guilt. Come, loose
The gloomy chains that hold us fast.
The Devil forged them out of fire
And death. Free us from fear at last.
And liberate your ministers
From scourge and stripe of palace guards,
When godly service of your name
Is repaid with unjust rewards.