These verses were added when the Hymn was appropriated to Passiontide. The ending of Fortunatus is this:
With fragrance dropping from each bough
Sweeter than sweetest nectar thou:
Decked with the fruit of peace and praise,
And glorious with Triumphal lays:—
Hail, Altar! Hail, O Victim! Thee
Decks now Thy Passion's Victory;
Where Life for sinners death endured,
And life by death for man procured.
The two last lines are substituted in the modern Roman Breviary for the concluding half of the first verse. The poet had possibly the distich of Sedulius in his eye.
Vita beata necem miseris avertere venit:
Pertulit a miseris Vita beata necem.
[This translation was also adopted in the Hymnal Noted, from whence it was copied into Hymns Ancient and Modern, with some alterations which, I think, are not improvements: e.g. in ver. 3, we have the colloquialism of—"Fulfilled is now what David told."]
