'Yea, blessed must He be,' said they, 'that cometh in God's name,' Which filled the Jews and Pharisees with anger and with grame

[malice].1 From Sinner Beware! I extract one verse mainly to exemplify the metre:

Naked, forsooth, and bare,
With weeping and with care,
We did begin to live,

So from hence shall we fare,
And all our boasting there

In the grave lay and leave.2

In the poem On Serving Christ, the two first lines

are:

Why serve we not the Christ? his health why want?
We who were christened at the holy font.3

The verses hitherto quoted from this collection of thirteenth century composition have been by unknown authors. But next comes a sort of divine love-song written by Thomas Hales, a Minorite friar, for a certain maiden who had dedicated herself to God. I quote a couple of stanzas from it :

Sweet are the ways, if ye but knew,
And goodly, of the Heavenly Child.
Full fair is He, and bright of hue,

His cheer is glad, His mood is mild,
Lovesome His heart, trusty and true,
Free heart, a soul with wisdom filled.
Never, believe me, would ye rue,

If ye to Him true worship yield.

1 The Passion of Our Lord, 64-72, E. E.T.S. No. 49:
Tho he com toward ierusalem a palme sune-day
Ne hedde he none robe of fowe ne of gray.

2 Sinner Beware, 212-6:

Sothliche nakede and bare,
With wope and with care,

We come to thisse lyue.

Al so we schule fare,
And all ure prude thare
Vor-leten and bileuen.

3 On Serving Christ, 1-2:

Hwi ne serue we Crist and secheth his sauht,
Seoththe vs wes at the font fulluht by-tauht.

This irks me first, that I must go;
This next, that 'when' I cannot know;

But third there comes my foremost care :—

I know not 'whither' I shall fare.1

I conclude my renderings from this collection of thirteenth century verses with a rather amusing extract. It is from a piece entitled A Lutel Soth Sermun. It begins :

Hearken to me ye good folk all

And sit ye still adown.

Listen, and I will tell to you

A little Sooth Sermoun.

Then, after a short preface about the fall of man and about the redemption by Christ, he first pronounces his warnings against the graver sins of violence and theft; then he speaks against petty cheating in trade, chapmen who use short measures, bakers who palm off on the poor bad bread, and brewers who brew bad ale. Then, in a lighter strain, of the lads and froward lasses who thought of their lovers more than of their prayerbooks:

Each one, when to Church he comes,

On a holy day,

Fain is he his love to see,

If perchance he may.
She beholdeth Walter-kin
Glad with merry eye;
At home her Pater Noster is
Locked up in her tie [chest].
Masses she and Matins
Reckoneth for nought,—
Williekin or Wattiekin
Be in all her thought.
Robin carries Gillot dear
With him to the ale ;
There they two together sit,
Sit, and tell their tale.
He will quit her reckoning:
Ever 'tis the same-

1 Three Sorrowful Tidings:

Vyche day me cumeth tydinges threo,
For wel swithe sore beoth heo.

Evening she must go with him:
Pincheth her no shame.
Threaten father, threaten dame,

That they her will beat.
Robin she will not forego,
Not for all their threat.1

And so the heedless girl comes to sorrow; and the homilist again changes his tone, and beseeches the people that for God's love they will forsake their sins, and tread in the way to heaven.

Stories of martyrs have always been to the popular mind a fascinating part of Christian literature. This taste was abundantly provided for in the lives of saints. The sufferings of St. Juliana are told in one of the manuscripts which survive from Anglo-Saxon times. Among the different versions of St. Margaret, Maiden and Martyr, the earliest, transcribed about 1230, appears to have been composed in English about the middle of the twelfth century, and is therefore particularly interesting to students of early English. torments to which the virgin was subjected by the tyrant Olybrius are told in a vivid narrative, doubtless all the more attractive by being so highly coloured. I quote from one of the prayers put into the mouth of the martyr. It is in alliterative verse :

Dark are Thy dooms, dear Lord, but doughty all;
Both heaven and earth to Thee do bow and bend,
For hope Thou art and help to all that hear Thee.
Foster and father Thou to helpless bairns,
The weal of wedded men, the widow's warrant,
The meed of maidens, the world's winsomeness.

O Jesu Christ, King-born, kindled of God,

As light of leam (gleam), look, Lord, my Life, upon me;

1 A Lutel Soth Sermun, 61-84, in E. E. T.S. No. 49:

Hwenne heo to chirche cumeth

to thon holy daye,

Euersych wile his leof iseo

ther yef he may.

Heo biholdeth Watekin

mid sweth gled eye

Atom his hire pater noster,
biloken in hire teye.

The

Be mild to me, Thy Maiden; for my father
Drove me his only daughter from his door,
And friends are foemen for thy love, O Lord;
But Thee I have, High Healer, Father, Friend.1

The following are some lines on Christ's Crucifixion, taken from, or suggested by a meditation of St. Augustine. The manuscript was given to the Durham Library by their prior between 1240 and 1258:

White was His hallowed breast,

And red with blood his side;
Wan was His comely face ;

His wound was deep and wide.
Stiff were His outstretched arms,
High spread upon the rood,
And from five piteous wounds

The streams ran down in blood.2

The lines next quoted come from a thirteenth century poem on the Assumption, taken most likely from

the Latin :

When Jesu Christ was slain on rood,
And bore to die for our good,

Then called He unto Him St. John!
Who was to Him his own kinsman,
And His own mother called He too,
And other none beside these two.
Then said He, 'Woman, lo, thy child!
Here on the Cross this blood is spilled.
Now am I hangèd on this tree,
And well, I wot, it reweth thee.
My feet and hands with blood are red,
And without guilt I bear this ded (death).
My people who ought me to love,
For whom I came from heaven above,
My own, have put me thus to shame.
I have no guilt; theirs is the blame.
I ask my Father for this boon,
That He forgive it them full soon.3

1 Seinte Marherete, ed. by O. Cockayne; E. E.T.S. No. 13: Deorewurdhe drightin, thah thine domes derne beon, alle ha beodh duhti Alle heouenliche thing ant eordliche badhe buhedh the ant beiedh.

2 Poems, etc., of Thirteenth Century, ed. by Furnivall, E.E.T.S. No. 15: Wyth was his halude brest.'

3 The Assumpcioun, ed. by R. Lumby for E.E.T.S. No. 14: 'Whan Jhesu Crist was done on rode.'

Three hymns dating from the earlier part of the thirteenth century are appended by Dr. Morris to some Early English homilies. The Hymn to God is by no means wanting in sublimity of thought. I quote the first four verses. The succeeding verses are mainly an amplification of the Lord's Prayer :

Well it behoveth for to speak, to counsel, and to sing

Of Him whom none may lightly reck, great King of every king; For He may bind, and He may break, and He to bliss may bring,

Lock and unbar at will, mighty o'er everything.

Father of men, heaven's Lord, health, comfort, and delight!
The things that are and were—all things are in Thy sight:
To day thou giv'st the sun, the moon unto the night :

Thy strength may no man tell, no man may tell Thy might!
Thy holy name be hallowed in heaven and in earth.
Thou wroughtest fire, wind, water, and, for fourth,
That of which men are made, the mould of holy earth.

O draw us nearer to Thee, Thou God that know'st our birth!
Father and Son, and Holy Ghost, one God in three-foldness,
Thou hast no lack nor least; Thou hast all holiness!
Well dost thou wot, O God, our need, our helplessness;
But in Thy hand is might; O look on us, and bless ?1

A Hymn to Our Saviour is one in a collection of sacred and secular poems of Edward the First's reign:

Ah, sweetest Jesu, King of bliss,

Thou my heart's love, Thou my heart's ease,
Jesu, Thy sweetness well I wis;

'Tis woe to him who Thee shall miss!

Ah, sweetest Jesu, my heart's light,
In Thee is day, in Thee no night;
O give me strength, and give me might,
That I may love Thee, Lord, aright!

Jesu, in Thee my heart finds boot :
Within my heart O set the root

Of Thy dear love, that is so swote; [sweet]
And blest by Thee forth may it shoot.

1 Old English Homilies of the Twelfth Century: with Appendix, ed. by Rev, R. Morris; E.E.T.S. No. 53: 'Hit bilimpeth forto speke, to reden, and to singe.'