To the saints in heaven

You saints who after death dwell in heaven's shining mansions,

if there are rewards here for good deeds,

Accept the renowned gifts of the thrice most excellent King Henry

and consider him deserving for his golden piety.

He serves your altars with whatever wealth he can;

nor, tireless, does he defend your honour with weapons alone,

But fights the more fiercely with eloquence, as with fresh arguments

he learnedly crushes the blasphemers whose mouths rage against you.

Who ever was there, whoever will there be, who, resplendent with so many merits and so many virtues, might dare to be compared to this king?

Grant him, therefore, all you blessed in heaven, what he desires:

give him increase (for the rest he has aplenty) with male offspring.

Just let childlessness be far from him, and let there be one to follow him,

whom joyful Britain may obey to the farthest shores of the ocean.

As one mighty in his right arm, and in war, and in rich lands,

As one whose graceful eloquence flows from his sweet mouth,

King Henry is the greatest of all kings; but in guarding the true

Laws of the Gods, he alone is stronger than any power.

No longer like a mortal, Henry is most worthy of

High heaven, and of the council of the Lord.

And he should properly be reckoned a second God to us

When he acts so that such holy gifts of God may endure.

Cythereia's son bore on his shoulders his father and the sacred vessels

While all Greece fell upon their Trojan homes.

While Luther falls upon Christ and overthrows the shrines,

Henry, too, bears on his shoulders his father and the sacred vessels.

An Atlas of religion, another Paul in voice and hand,

The death of Luther, gatekeeper of heaven, beloved of the world,

O King, your voice and your spear pierce to where

Even the rays of Hyperion pierce not.

If anyone saved a citizen or supplied

Tireless assistance to a tottering fatherland in its darkest hour,

Then the ancient world deemed him worthy of the highest honours.