* * * * *
This is the day which the Lord
hath made: let us rejoice and be glad in it.
For the beloved and most holy
Child has been given to us and
born for us by the wayside.
And laid in a manger because He
had no room in the inn.
Glory to God in the highest: and
on earth peace to men of good will.”[{11}]
It is in the poetry of Jacopone da Todi, born shortly after the death of St. Francis, that the Franciscan Christmas spirit finds its most intense expression. A wild, wandering ascetic, an impassioned poet, and a soaring mystic, Jacopone is one of the greatest of Christian singers, unpolished as his verses are. Noble by birth, he made himself utterly as the common people for whom he piped his rustic notes. “Dio fatto piccino” (“God made a little thing”) is the keynote of his music; the Christ Child is for him “our sweet little brother”; with tender affection he rejoices in endearing diminutives—“Bambolino,” “Piccolino,” “Jesulino.” He sings of the Nativity with extraordinary realism.[13] Here, in words, is a picture of the Madonna and her Child that might well have inspired an early Tuscan artist:—
“Veggiamo il suo Bambino
Gammettare nel fieno,
E le braccia scoperte
Porgere ad ella in seno,[40]
Ed essa lo ricopre
El meglio che può almeno,
Mettendoli la poppa
Entro la sua bocchina.
* * * * *
A la sua man manca,
Cullava lo Bambino,
E con sante carole
Nenciava il suo amor fino....
Gli Angioletti d’ intorno
Se ne gian danzando,
Facendo dolci versi
E d’ amor favellando.”[14][{12}]
But there is an intense sense of the divine, as well as the human, in the Holy Babe; no one has felt more vividly the paradox of the Incarnation:—
JACOPONE IN ECSTASY BEFORE THE VIRGIN.
From “Laude di Frate Jacopone da Todi”