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 Latin text
1. Sanctorum meritis inclita gaudia
Pangamus socii gestaque fortia
Nam gliscit animus promere cantibus
Victorum genus optimum.
2. Hi sunt quo retines mundis inhorruit
Ipsum nam sterile flore per aridum
Sprevere penitus teque secuti sunt,
Rex, Christe, bone caelitum.
3. Hi pro te furias atque ferocia
calcarunt hominum saevaque verbera,
cessit his lacerans fortiter ungula
nec carpsit penetralia.
4. Quæ vox, quæ poterit lingua retexere
Quæ tu martyribus munera praeparas?
Rubri nam fluido sanguine laureis
Ditantur bene fulgidis.
5. Te, summa Deitas unaque, poscimus,
ut culpas abluas, noxia subtrahes,
Des pacem famulis nos quoque gloriam
per cuncta tibi sæcula.
Amen
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 English translation
The merits of the saints,
Blessèd for evermore,
Their love that never faints,
The toils they bravely bore—
For these the Church today
Pours forth her joyous lay—
These victors win the noblest bay.
They, whom the world of ill,
While it yet held, abhorred;
Its withering flowers that still
They spurned with one accord—
They knew them short lived all,
And followed at Thy call,
King Jesu, to Thy heavenly hall.
Like sheep their blood they poured,
And without groan or tear,
They bent before the sword,
For that their King most dear:
Their souls, serenely blest,
In patience they possessed,
And looked in hope towards their rest.
What tongue may here declare,
Fancy or thought descry,
The joys Thou dost prepare
For these Thy saints on high!
Empurpled in the flood
Of their victorious blood,
They won the laurel from their God.
To Thee, O Lord most high,
One in three Persons still,
To pardon us we cry,
And to preserve from ill:
Here give Thy servants peace,
Hereafter glad release,
And pleasures that shall never cease.
tr. John mason Neale
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