Alas, I lost her in a grot

Through grass to ground she from me fell,-
That precious pearl without a spot,

And pain and pine my heart befell.
Oft wend I where I met that woe,

And longing yearn for her I lost,-
My life and light when heart was low,

Or when with care my soul was crossed.
But when the thought did through me thrill,
And when my breast did boil and bleed,
There came through the calm air, and still,
The sweetest song that ear could heed.

Sweet odours o'er my senses shot;
I fell upon the flowers, where lay
My precious pearl without a spot,
Wafted in welcome sleep away.
My spirit sprang from me in space,
My body bode apart in dream;
Gone is my ghost, by heaven's grace

To move in quest where marvels teem.

So, through sights of wonder and beauty, he came in vision to a beautiful river, whose banks were of beryl, and its stones

Bright glancing in the glittering deep,

Gleam as through glass which glows with light;
As shines with stars o'er men asleep

The welkin on a wintry night.

.

The dear delight of down and dale,

Of wandering waters, wood and plain,

Built in me bliss, abated bale,

Foredid my dole, destroyed my pain.

As he passed on, a joy unspeakable flooded his soul, and he thought he saw Paradise on the further side of the stream. Anon he beheld a crystal cliff—

And at its foot a child full fair,
(So well I knew that sweetest sight!)
A maiden mild and debonnair,

In gleaming robe of glistening white,
Pure as pure gold beyond compare,
So shone her sheen on yonder shore,
Long as I looked upon her there,

Ever I knew her more and more.

He was amazed and faint, and dare not speak. At last, to his great joy, she greeted him with a sweet look. Then he spoke, and told her of his sorrow for his lost

For since we two were torn in twain,
I was a joyless jeweller.

gem:

Then she answered that, so far from being a lost pearl, she was in a garden of bliss, where was neither wrong nor mourning; and, in sooth,

That thou didst lose was but a rose

Which flowers and fades as nature bids.

It was only in this better land that she had become in truth as a pearl of price. The father wonders how a little child who could neither please God nor pray to Him could be received into such bliss. She answers by telling the parable of the vineyard. She had not borne the burden and heat of the day, but neither had she sinned, and the Lord had been pleased to give to innocence no less than He gives to righteousness. God's good grace is both free and great; and Christ Himself had called the children to Him. Then she tells of the love and glory of the Lamb of God. She shows him the outside of the heavenly Jerusalem, and as the moon began to rise he became aware of a mighty procession of maidens like his own pearl, crowned and in white robes, singing in praise of the Lamb, who went before them; and she was there among them. At last he awakens, and the poem ends with words on the blessedness of being a good Christian, with God Himself for Lord and friend:

Keep us, good God, Thy servants true,

And pearls of price to please Thee aye.

The next poem-alliterative, but not in rhyme-is a collection of stories from the Bible on the sore punishment with which God visits the sinner for all sins of impurity. It is the pure in heart who shall see God. Happy the atheling whose heart is clean,

For with good cheer shall he look on the Lord.1

1 Line 27: The hathel clene of his hert hapenez ful fayre, For he schal loke on our Lade with a bone chere.

First come the story of the marriage feast, and of him who came in unclean array; from which is drawn the lesson:

O ware thee well that all thy weeds be clean,
Honouring His holy day; else thou hast harm.
What are those weeds which ye may wrap ye in,
They that shall show you shrouded pure and sheen?
Good works they are which thou in life has wrought;
See thou be found both fresh and fair in life.

God loves the limbs all lapped in cleanly wise;

So see thy Saviour in His blissful seat.1

Then come the stories of the fall of angels and of men; the story of the flood, of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, of the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, of the captivity of the Jews, of the defiling of the holy vessels by Belshazzar, and of the wrath which fell upon him. Of this pollution of the sacred things he remarks :

For when a soul is sanctified to God,

He wholly holds and counts it as His own ;
And loth is He to lose it through ill lust,
As when a man is reft and robbed by wrong.
Ware thee then of His wrath; His wrath is hot,
If what was once His own be found unclean;
Yea, be it but a basin or a bowl,

Yet to defile it God doth fast forbid.2

The third poem, with its moral of patience under provocation, is the story of Jonah. In most AngloSaxon and Early English poems an episode from sea adventure is told with spirit. So it is here in the account of the storm which befell the ship where Jonah was on board. The following is part of it :

Anon from north and east the noise begins,

When blasts from both blow fierce on the blue main.

1 Early Alliterative Poems, etc., 165:

Bot war the wel, if thou wylt, thy wedes ben clene
And honest for the haly day, lest thou harme tache.

2 Id. 1139:

For when a sawele is sagtled and sakred to drygtyn,
He holly haldes hit his and have hit he wolde.

Rough rack of clouds arose with thunder roar ;
The sea sobbed sorely, marvel for to see.
On the wan waters wrestle the strong winds,
And the wild waves in madness welter high,
Then bend into th' abyss where fishes breed.

;

No joy could cheer the ship Jonah was in
For round it reeled amid the rude turmoil;
The billows burst abaft and broke the gear,
Then hurled upon a heap the helm and stern,
And many a rope was marred, and then the mast.
On the sea swung the sail; athwart there swept
Cold waters; and a call and cry arose

To cut the cords and cast out all the gear.
Then many a lad leapt forth to lave thereout
And scoop the scathful tide, fain to escape;

For though men's lot look hopeless, life is sweet.1

I may also quote some of the lines in which is rendered the divine remonstrance at Jonah's fretful impatience :

What wonder I would help my handiwork?

Thou waxest wroth for cause of thy woodbine.

Which caused thee no kind care its growth to keep,
One hour it waxed, the next withered away;
And thou mislikest, and thy life would lose.

But I, in mercy on the men I made,

Relent to redeless souls who rue their sin.
I made them for myself to be mine own;
Then kept I guard o'er them, with care to guide.
If I make trip the travel of that time,

And throw in dust yon town that turns from sin,
That sorrow sore would sink into my soul
Of many men who mourn their malice there.
And some lack art to reason right and wrong;
And little bairns there be that ne'er wrought bale;

And many poor brute beasts be in the burgh,
Who sin no sort to suffer grief of soul;
Shall I be wrath with them, when wights will turn
And come to me as King, and keep my laws? 2

1 Early Alliterative Poems: Patience, 137:

Anon out of the north est the noys bigynes
When bothe brethes con blowe vpon blo watteres.

2 Id. 496:

If I wolde help my honde work, haf thou no wonder
Thou art waxen so wroth for thy wodbynde.

Robert Mannyng, of the Abbey of Brunne (Bourne, near Deeping, Lincolnshire), lived in the reigns of Edward II. and Edward III. He tells us that he began his treatise entitled The Handlyng Synne in 1303. It is a very free paraphrase or adaptation, with frequent additions, of the Manuel de Péches, written in NormanFrench by William of Waddington, and a great improvement on the original. It is written in that southern dialect which was gradually becoming the English language, in a lively and interesting style well fitted to carry out the special purpose of its writer, which was to catch the attention of men who were ready anywhere for a tale, but were deaf to sedate and solemn preachers.

་

For many be of such mannére

That tales and rhymes will gladly hear.
In games and feasts, and at the ale
Love men to hark to pleasant tale,
That oft may fall to vylanie,

To deadly sin and like folly ;—

For such men have I made this rhyme,
That they may better spend their time,
And therein somewhat find to hear,

As so to leave such foul mannere.1

The plan of the work is to go through first the Commandments, then the seven deadly sins, then the Sacraments, to expand each subject in its practical bearings, and to illustrate it with some tale or legend. It is an excellent book of its kind. De Brunne is, indeed, credulous in the extreme, and the more amazing a story is, the better it satisfies him. But the whole work is thoroughly infused with high Christian purpose, with an intense feeling of the evil of sin, and of the severance which it causes between man and God. He loves simple folk, hates all forms of oppression and meanness, and speaks out openly and straightforwardly against the vices he sees around him. Yet his verse is

1 Robert of Brunne's Handlyng Synne, edited by F. J. Furnivall for the Roxburghe Club; Prologue, 44-54: For many ben of swyche manere.'

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