Jesus, the fragrance of the heart, No tongue suffices to confess, The heart that proves believes the bliss, With Mary, ere the morning break, O Jesus, King unspeakable! Victor, whose triumphs none can tell- Alone to be desired: When Thou dost in our hearts appear, Truth shines with glorious light, and clear; The world's joys seem the dross they are, And love burns bright within. Thy love was proved upon the Cross, Who taste Thy love, true food obtain ; Jesus, the strength of angels strong, Wherever I may chance to be, How glad when I discover Thee, Beyond all treasures is Thy grace. And make me wholly glad? Then come, oh come, Thou perfect King, Fountain of mercy and of love, Sun of the Fatherland above, The cloud of sadness far remove, The light of glory give! From God's right hand, Thy rightful throne, Return, Beloved, to Thine own; Thy victory has long been won, Oh, claim Thy conquest now ! The heavenly choirs Thy name, Lord, greet, And evermore Thy praise repeat; Thou fillest heaven with joy complete, Making our peace with God. Jesus has gone to heaven again, We follow Thee with praises there, Grant us, O Lord, with Thee. CHAPTER VIII MEDIEVAL HYMNS. THE biographies of the other medieval hymn-writers, whose hymns are translated in these pages, are so little known, that we must look on their modes of living and thinking through those of St Bernard. With one exception, all were monks, and the monotonous routine of monastic life seems in their histories to have replaced the endless varieties of discipline by which our heavenly Father trains His children. Doubtless, could we penetrate beneath the cowl and within the convent walls, which time has now so firmly sealed, we should see that even there, uniform as the outward life was, the varieties of inward training were as many as the individual souls there trained. Doubtless, whilst these monks rigidly subjected themselves to one arbitrary rule of living, and praying, and abstaining, beneath this rule, and crossing it, God's hand was at work, with his own separate discipline for each character, testing by sickness, proving by disappointment, sustaining by especial promises, stirring each heart by special blessings. But all this is hidden from us; and learned men seem only to know that Adam of St Victor, the author of thirty-six of the most celebrated medieval hymns, was a contemporary of St Bernard, and a member of the illustrious religious house of St Victor at Paris; that Thomas of Celano, supposed author of the “Dies Iræ,” was an Italian, who became a Franciscan friar, and lived in the thirteenth century; that Thomas à Kempis was a Dutchman, born at Overyssel in 1380, of the Order of the Fratres Communis Vitæ; and that whatever else is known of their minds and hearts, is only as revealed in their writings. The one exception to the monastic character of mediæval hymn-writers is King Robert the Second of France, author of the touching hymn, in which all his gentle nature seems to speak, "Veni Sancte Spiritus;" and King Robert had certainly more of the monk than of the king about him. He seems to have been, if ever any man was, made for the cloister, and being forced into the publicity of the throne, he threw as much as possible of the colouring of the convent over his home and his court. Necessity drove him to the cares and the state of royalty; but his joys were in church music, which he composed, in devotion, and in alms-giving. His mind was his hermitage, and in its cloistral quiet he dwelt apart, enclosed by sacred spells of melody and song. King Robert is hardly an exception to the fact that the hymn-writers of the middle ages were all devoted to the monastic life. The son of Hugh Capet, he ascended the throne of France A.D. 987, and died A.D. 1031. His hymn, "Veni Sancte Spiritus," was therefore probably composed about the commencement of the eleventh century, when the accents of the sacred song were taken up by Peter Damiani, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, said to have been a zealous |