Written by Hildegard von Bingen. Her music is most heavenly and angelic.
Translation of the lyrics in English:
O branch and diadem in royal purple clad,
who like a shield stand in your cloister strong.
1b. You burst forth blooming but with buds quite different
than Adam’s progeny—th’ entire human race.
2a. Hail, o hail! For from your womb came forth another life,
that had been stripped by Adam from his sons.
2b. O bloom, you did not spring from dew
nor from the drops of rain,
nor has the windy air flown over you; but radiance divine
has brought you forth upon that noblest bough.
3a. O branch, your blossoming God had foreseen
within the first day of his own creation.
3b. And by his Word he made of you a golden matrix,
O Virgin, worthy of our praise.
4a. O, how great in power is that side of man,
from which God brought the form of woman forth,
a mirror made
of all his ornament, and an embrace
of all his own creation.
4b. The heavens’ symphony resounds, in wonder stands
all earth, O Mary, worthy of our praise,
for God has loved you more than all.
5a. O cry and weep! How deep the woe!
What sorrow seeped with guilt
in womanhood because the serpent hissed his wicked plan!
5b. That woman, whom God made to be the mother of the world,
had pricked her womb
with wounds of ignorance—the full inheritance of grief
she offered to her offspring.
6a. But from your womb, O dawn, has come the sun anew;
the guilt of Eve he’s washed away
and through you offered humankind a blessing
even greater than the harm that Eve bestowed.
6b. O Lady Savior, who has offered to the human race
a new and brighter light: together join the members of your Son
into the heavens’ harmony.