indeed they bear profoundly the stamp of his mind, being only inferior in beauty to his prose.

XXII. ORATIO RHYTHMICA AD CHRISTUM A CRUCE PENDENTEM.

1. AD PEDES.

SALVE,

ALVE, mundi salutare,
Salve salve, Jesu care!
Cruci tuæ me aptare
Vellem vere, tu scis quare,
Da mihi tui copiam.
Ac si præsens sis, accedo,
Immo te præsentem credo;
O quam mundum hic te cerno !
Ecce tibi me prosterno,
Sis facilis ad veniam.

Clavos pedum, plagas duras,
Et tam graves impressuras

5

10

XXII. Bernardi Opp. ed. Bened., Paris, 1719, vol. ii. pp. 916, 919; Mone, Hymn. Lat. Med. Evi, vol. i. p. 162.-The full title of the poem from which two of its seven portions, each however complete in itself, are here drawn, is commonly as follows: Rhythmica oratio ad unum quodlibet membrorum Christi patientis, et a cruce pendentis. I have chosen these two, the first and the last, because in a composition of such length, extending to nearly four hundred lines, it was necessary to make some selection; yet its other divisions are of no inferior depth or beauty: quæ omnia, as Daniel says with merest truth, omnes divini amoris spirant æstus atque incendia, ut nil possit suavius dulciusque excogitari.

Dulcis Jesu, pie Deus,
Ad te clamo, licet reus,

25

330

35

15. Meorum] So Mone, on good MS. authority. It is a wonderful improvement on tuorum, the ordinary reading; and at once carries conviction with it.

36-40. So Mone; but more commonly the latter half of this strophe is read as follows:

Et hos pedes corde pressit
Æger, sanus hinc abscessit,
Hic relinquens quidquid gessit,
Dans osculum vulneribus.

Coram cruce procumbentem,
Hosque pedes complectentem,
Jesu bone, me ne spernas,
Sed de cruce sanctâ cernas
Compassionis gratiâ.

In hâc cruce stans directe
Vide me, o mi dilecte,
Ad te totum me converte;
Esto sanus, dic aperte,
Dimitto tibi omnia.

2. AD FACIEM.

Salve, caput cruentatum,
Totum spinis coronatum,

Præbe mihi te benignum,

Ne repellas me indignum
De tuis sanctis pedibus.

O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,
Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn!

is freely composed upon the model of what follows now.

40

45

50

51. Salve, caput cruentatum] I have observed already how these great hymns of the early or medieval Church served as the foundation of some of the noblest post-Reformation hymns; the later poet, no slavish copyist nor mere translator, yet rejoicing to find his inspiration in these earlier sources. It has been so in the present instance. Paul Gerhard's Passion Hymn