Come Out, Lazar

Come out, Lazar!
Come out, Lazaro, what so befall.
Then might not the fiend of hell
Longer make that soule to dwell.
So dreadful was that ilke cry
To that feloun, our enemy.
The kinges trumpet blew a blast;
Come out! it said, be not aghast.
With that voice the find gan quake,
As doth the leaf when windes wake.
‘Come out’ is now a wonder soun,
It hath o’ercome that foul feloun
And all his careful company.
For dread thereof they gunne cry:
Yet is come out a wonder song,
For it has broken the prison strong.
Fetters, chains and bondes mo
That wroughten wretched soules woe.
Come out! That kinges voice so free
It maketh the devil and death to flee.
Say me now thou serpent sly Is not?
Come out! an asper cry?
“Come out’ is a word of battle,
For it gan helle soon t’assail.
Why stoppest thou not, fiend, thine ear?
That this word enter not there?
He that said that word of might,
Shop him felly to the fight.
For with that word he won the field
Withouten spear, withouten shield,
And brought them out of prison strong,
That were enholden there with wrong.
Tell now, tyrant, where is thy might?
“‘Come out’ hath felled it all with fight.

– Anonymous fourteenth-century Middle English