§ 133. HYMNS AND SACKED POETKY. 863
following: "Now lift high your voices," or "Lift up your song, Let us praise the Son of God."
As compared with the hymns of the Ambrosian group and of Prudentius, the mediaeval sacred poems are lacking in their strong and triumphant tone. They are written in the minor key, and give expression to the softer feelings of the heart, and its fears and forebodings. They linger at the cross and over the mystery of the Lord's Supper, passion ately supplicate the intercession of Mary or dwell on her perfections, and also depict the awful solemnities of the judgment and the entrancing glories of paradise. Where we are unable to follow the poet in his theology, we cannot help but be moved by his soft cadences and the tenderness of his devotion.
Among the poets of the earlier part of the period are Peter Damiani, some of whose hymns were received into the Brev iaries,1 Anselm of Canterbury, and Hildebert, archbishop of Tours (d. 1134). Some of Hildebert's lines were used by Longfellow in his "Golden Legend." Abselard also wrote hymns, one of which, on the creation, was translated by Trench.2
Bernard of Clairvaux, according to Abaelard's pupil, Berengar, cultivated poetic composition from his youth.3 Five longer religious poems are ascribed to him.4 From the Rhythmic Song on the name of Christ — Jubilus rhythmicus de nomine Jesu — the Roman Breviary has drawn three hymns, which are used on the festival of the name of Christ. They are : —
1 Migne, 145. 930 sqq. See Libr. of ReL Poetry, pp. 897, 980.
2 Cousin gave 97 of these poems in his ed. of Abselard, 1849. 8 Apol. pro Abcelardo, Migne, 178. 1857.
* See Herold, BernharcVs Hymnen, in Herzog, II. 649. The text of the hymns is found in Migne, 184. 1307 sqq., and in part in Schaff, Lit. and Poe try, etc. Mabillon, whose edition Migne reproduced, casts doubt upon the genuineness of all but two of these poems, and Vacandard ( Vie de S. Bern., II. 103) and Haureau (Les poems attribute a S. Bern., Paris, 1890) upon all of them. But they are ascribed to Bernard by the oldest tradition and no one can be found so likely to be their author as Bernard, Herold advocates the Bernardian authorship.
864 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Jesus, the very thought of thee. Jesu, dulcis memoria.
Jesus, King most wonderful. Jesu, rex admirabilis.
0 Jesus, thou the beauty art. Jesu, decus angelicum.
The first of these hymns has been called by Dr. Philip Schaff, " the sweetest and most evangelical hymn of the Middle Ages."
The free version of some of the verses by Ray Palmer is the most popular form of Bernard's poem as used in the American
churches.
Jesus, thou Joy of loving hearts,
Thou Fount of life, thou Light of men, From the best bliss that earth imparts We turn unfilled to thee again.
The poem to the Members of Christ's body on the Cross — RJiythmica oratio ad unum quodlibet membrorum Christi patientis — is a series of devotional poems addressed to the crucified Saviour's feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart, and face. From the poem addressed to our Lord's face — Salve caput cruentatum — John Gerhardt, 1656, took his
0 Haupt voll Slut und Wunden.
0 sacred head, now wounded,
With grief and shame weighed down.
Much as Bernard influenced his own age in other ways, he continues to influence our own effectively and chiefly by his hymns.
Bernard of Cluny, d. about 1150, has an enduring name as the author of the most beautiful and widely sung hymn on heaven, " Jerusalem the Golden." He Avas an inmate of the convent of Cluny when Peter the Venerable was its abbot, 1122-1156. From his probable place of birth, Morlaix, Brittany, he is sometimes called Bernard of Morlaix. Of his career nothing is known. He lives in his poem, " The Contempt of the World " — de contemptu mundi — from which the hymns are taken which go by his name.1 It
1 Ninety-six lines of the original were made known to English readers by Trench. Neale's transl. is given in the Libr. of Eel. Poetry, pp. 981-985 ; a prose transl. of the whole poem by Dr. S. M. Jackson, in Am. Journ. of Theol., 1906, See note in Schaff's Christ in Song, Lond. ed., pp. 511 sq.