The thirsty years have all been passed

Author: Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus

Venantius Honorius Clematianus Fortunatus (b. Cenada, near Treviso, Italy, c. 530; d. Poitiers, France, 609) was educated at Ravenna and Milan and was converted to the Christian faith at an early age. Legend has it that while a student at Ravenna he contracted a disease of the eye and became nearly blind. But he was miraculously healed after anointing his eyes with oil from a lamp burning before the altar of St. Martin of Tours. In gratitude Fortunatus made a pilgrimage to that saint's shrine in Tours and spent the rest of his life in Gaul (France), at first traveling and composing love songs. He developed a platonic affection for Queen Rhadegonda, joined her Abbey of St. Croix in Poitiers, and became its bishop in 599. His Hymns far all th… Go to person page >

Translator: J. Williams

John Williams was born at Deerfield, Mass., in 1817; graduated at Trinity College, Hartford, in 1835; was ordained Deacon, 1838; Priest, 1841; Rector of S. George's, Schenectady, N.Y., 1842; President of Trinity College, 1848-1853; Assistant Bishop of Connecticut, 1851, and sole Bishop, by the death of Bishop Brownell, in 1865. He has edited a number of works of value. --Annotations of the Hymnal, Charles Hutchins, M.A. 1872.… Go to person page >