Et somnolentos increpat; Gallo canente, spes redit, Jesu, labantes respice, Tu lux refulge sensibus, Christians a mystical significance. It said, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." And thus the cock became, in the middle ages, the standing emblem of the preachers of God's Word. The old heathen notion, that the lion could not bear the sight of the cock (Ambrose, Hexaëm. vi. 4: Leo gallum et maxime album veretur; cf. Lucretius, iv. 716; Pliny, H. N. viii. 19) easily adapted itself to this new symbolism. Satan, the roaring lion, filed away terrified, at the faithful preaching of God's Word. Nor did it pass unnoted, that this bird, clapping its wings upon its sides, first rouses itself, before it seeks to rouse others. Thus Gregory the Great (Reg. Pastor. iii. 40): Gallus, cum jam edere cantus parat, prius alas excutit, et semetipsum feriens vigilantiorem reddit: quia nimirum necesse est, ut hi, qui verba sanctæ prædicationis movent, prius studio bonæ actionis evigilent, ne in semetipsis torpentes opere, alios excitent voce. 25-28. A beautiful allusion to Luke xxii. 60–62. LVI. Bernardi Opp. ed Bened. 1719, vol. ii. p. 914.—This poem, among those of St Bernard perhaps the most eminently characteristic of its author, consists, in its original form, of nearly fifty quatrains, and, unabridged, would have been too long for insertion here; not to say that, with all the beauty of the stanzas in particular, the composition, as a whole, lies under the defect of a certain monotony and want of progress. Where all was beautiful, the task of selection was certainly a hard one; but only in this way could the poem have found place in this volume; nor, for the reasons just stated, did I feel that it would be altogether a loss to it to present it in this briefer form. 45 O Jesu mi dulcissime, Tu fons misericordiæ, Te cœli chorus prædicat, Jesus ad Patrem rediit, Quem prosequamur laudibus, |