The 'Golden Sequence' of Pentecost — 'Come, thou Holy Spirit, come' — long held the loveliest of the medieval sequences, its authorship debated between King Robert II, Stephen Langton, and Pope Innocent III.
Come, thou holy Paraclete, and from thy celestial seat send thy light and brilliancy: Father of the poor, draw near; giver of all gifts, be here; come, the soul's true radiancy. Come, of comforters the best, of the soul the sweetest guest, come in toil refreshingly.
The dated sources the library holds, oldest first — in their own words.
Following Durandus, earlier writers ascribed the sequence variously to King Robert II of France (who reigned 997–1031) and, with Cardinal Bona, to Hermann Contractus — attributions the later manuscript evidence does not bear out.
“This makes probable the ascription to Stephen Langton (q.v.), made by a writer whom Cardinal Pitra thinks an English Cistercian who lived about the year 1210. More probable is the ascription to Innocent III made by Ekkehard V in his "Vita S. Notkeri", written about 1220.”
Ranked among the loveliest hymns of the Latin Church, the Veni Sancte Spiritus is sung at Mass from Whitsunday (Pentecost) through the following Saturday; it comprises ten short stanzas and is one of only a handful of sequences kept in the Roman Missal.