Jesu, Thou Lord that hatest lies,
Almighty God in Trinity,

Stay Thou these wars, and send us peace,
With lasting love and charity.

Jesu, that art the Corner Stone

Of all the holy Church on earth,

Bring Thou Thy fold and flock in one,

And call them rightly with one hirde (shepherd).1

The following two stanzas are from a poem of about the same date, entitled The Love of Jesus:

Love is a thought with great desire,

And also of a fair loving;

I liken love unto a fire

That slacken may for ne'er a thing.
Love cleanseth us of all our sin,

Love unto us our bliss shall bring ;
Love the King's heart to us will win ;
Love can of joy for ever sing.

A longing in my heart is lent

For love, such as I cannot let [restrain];

His love he hath unto me sent

That every bale and grief may fleet;

And since my heart was fired and brent [burned]
With my Lord's love so dear and sweet,

Away from me all sorrow went,

And it and I no more will meet.2

In a poem of this collection, entitled by its editor The Mirror of the Periods of a Man's Life, the writer pictures to himself, as in a dream, the earthly history of a human soul from the time when the babe was born into the world, and

All alone as God him maked,

Into a wild that child did go ;
Till two in governance it taked—
An angel friend, an angel foe.

The story traces in its course the varied temptations and sins which beset the several periods of life from the time when the infant becomes conscious of good and

1 Hymns to Christ, etc., ed, by T. J. Furnivall, E.E.T. S. 24: 'Jhesu, Lord, that madist me.

2 Id. 84: Love is a thougt with gret desyr.'

evil, until the old man of a hundred years sinks into his grave. Towards its close, Wanhope (Despair) is represented as seeking to persuade the aged man that his sins have been too great for mercy, and that it is useless even to ask for it. But he returns answer that

he will ask on unwearied

For if perchance a man be wounded sore
And ask no medicines, 'tis his will to die ;
But God hath mercies still enough in store
For worlds in thousands that for mercy cry.1

I must refer to only one more poem in this collection -that named Revertere. It begins:

In a noontide of a summer's day

(The sun full merry shone that tide)—

I took my hawk all for to play,

My spaniel running by my side.

A pheasant hen soon gan I see

My hound put up all fair to flight

I sent my falcon, let him fly,

It was to me a dainty sight.

He ran on fast, but tumbled over a briar, and every leaf of it seemed to say 'Revertere!'-(Turn again!')

O turn again, Man, I thee pray,

And think in heart what thou hast been.

His heart

It led him to study sore his life. He found that he had not well used the hot summer of his life. had fled away, like the hawk, but not to God-only, alas, after the pheasant, Pleasure:

My next quotation, from another collection of fifteenth century verse, is from a poem which most likely dates from Edward the Fourth's reign :

1 Hymns to Christ, etc. From the poem beginning 'In wyntir nygt or y waked.'

2 Id. 'In a noon-tijd of a somers day.'

Now is well, and all things right,
And Christ is come as a true knight,
To be our brother, King of Might,

The fiend to fend and all his ;
Thus the fiend is put to flight,

And all his boast abated is.

Since it is so, let us well do,
For there is none but one of two-
Heaven to get, or heaven forego;
Means beside none other is ;

I counsel you, since it is so,

Ye do well, to win ye bliss.

Now is well, and all is well,

And right well, so we have bliss ;

And since, so, all is so well,

I rede, we do no more amiss.1

The following are some verses from another poem in the same manuscript :

Though thou be'st king and wear the crown,
Though thou be'st lord of tower and town,
I set not by thy great renown,

But an thou will amend-es make,

Sinful man, for Christés sake.

Man, thou art both stiff and strong,
Many a man thou hast done wrong;
'Well away!' shall be thy song,
But an thou wilt amend-es make

Sinful man, for Christés sake.

Than, beware! the way is scheder [sharply parted],
Thou must scleder [slide down], thou wottest weder [whether],
Body and soul, and all togeder,

But an thou wilt amend-es make,

Sinful man, for Christés sake.2

Among the poems of the age of Edward the Fourth, in the Parkington manuscript is one entitled The Vision

1 Songs and Carols of Fifteenth Century, ed. by T. Wright for the Percy Society, 1847: 'Now ys wele and all thyng arygt.'

2 Id. 44: Thow thou byst kyng and were the crowne.

of Philibert respecting the Body and Soul. The Latin of which this is a metrical version is supposed to have been by Walter de Mapes. Such mutual recriminations of soul and body after death were, as I have before had occasion to remark, a subject that frequently occurs in in very early English poetry. The one now under notice is rather a long piece, out of which I quote two verses. The soul stands by the body weeping, and reproaches it:

'I am a soul after the similitude

Of God, a creature of right noble wise,
Ordained to be of that great multitude,
That to God's glory shall ascend and rise;
But thou, alas! madest me to despise
My God; so well away the while!

For to eternal death he will us both exile.'

At last the body, long upbraided, starts from its

coffin, and retorts the charge:

'Reason God gave to thee, and will, and mind,

With divers goods he well endowed thee;

He gave thee all, and me he left behind,

Thy subject made, in full simple degree.

But thou wert negligent and ruled by me,

Thou should'st in greater measure have the pain,
In reason, as me-thinketh, of us twain.'1

The English verses interspersed amid the Latin homiletic teaching of John Wotton's Speculum Christiana (1418) have a certain interest, because this is said to have been the first printed volume in which English verse appeared. It will be seen from the extracts given that not much can be said for the intrinsic merit of the rhyme. The following is from a discourse on the Book of Wisdom :

He calleth every man a king

That here hath care or governing ;
He bids them love God in His law,
And teach it others to keep and knaw,

1 Early English Miscellanies, selected by J. O. Halliwell from the Porkington MS. (Warton Society), pp. 12-39:

I am a sole after thi simlytude

Of God, a creatur in a rygt nobul wyse.

And ever therein be most holy,

And then in heaven they crown'd shall be,
And have more worship and honoúr
Than ever had king or emperour.

And later on in the book :—

And some there be that give them mickle
To the world that is both false and fickle;
On it their love the most they set,

And it the love of God will let.1

It

The following are some lines from a poem written at the end of fifteenth century on the fly-leaf of a treatise of St. Bonaventura, printed at that date. is a poem of ten stanzas, representing Christ pleading against man's mistrust.

I bade thee ask, for hear I wold;

I bade thee seek, and I would save ;
I bade thee trust and make thee bold:
Ask of thy Brother-thou shalt have.

It grieved me more, the sin of Cain,
Than Abel dying who was good;
And Judas' loss gave greater pain,

Than that he sold me to the rood.
Pilate and Herod were so wode [mad],
Yet ne'er would I my ruth forbid,

Though never men as they withstood.

Mistrust thee never, man, for thy misdeed!

1 1 John Wotton, Speculum Christiana, 1480.

The following are the

words as they stand. I quote them for the reason above mentioned :

He calles euery man a kyng

That here has cure or governyng,
He biddes thaim loue god in hys lawe
And teche it other to kepe and knawe.

And ther aboute euer to be most helye
And than schall they in hevene crouned bee
And haue more worschip and honoure
Than euer hadde kynge here or emperour.

And somme they be that yeve them mekyll
To the world that ys bothe fals and fekyll
On hit their loue most they sette
And hit the loue of God most wille let.