Readings from Latin Verse; With Notes

by Curtis C. Bushnell

At Steele's request that he should write an ode in imitation of
Hadrian's poem, but of a 'cheerful dying spirit' Pope composed the hymn:

Vital spark of heav'nly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying! etc.

XII. ANONYMOUS.

Metre: Dactylic Hexameter, B. 368; A. & G. 615.

1. 1. Lindi: a city of Rhodes. 2. Ephyra: another name for Corinth. 7. Cecropius: Attic. Cecrops was the first king of Athens. induperabit: indu is an old form of in.

SACRED LATIN POETRY.

The Latin hymns differ from classical poetry in that accent and rhyme prevail instead of syllabic quantity. This is in accordance with the genius of a language which never disregarded accent and in which rhyme occurs even in its earliest extant literature, as in Ennius' Andromacha:

Haec omnia vidi inflammari,
Priamo vi vitam evitari, etc.

Among the famous authors of Latin hymns are Adam of St. Victor; St.
Ambrose; Fortunatus; Robert the Second, King of France; Bernard of
Clairvaux; Bernard of Cluny; and Abelard. Among the greatest of the
hymns are the Te Deum, the Veni, Creator Spiritus, the Stabat Mater, the
Veni, Sancte Spiritus, the Dies Irae, the Ut Iucundas, the Iesu, Dulcis
Memoria, and the Hora Novissima.

For Reference: Trench, Sacred Latin Poetry (London, 1874); March, Latin Hymns (New York, 1874); Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus (Leipzig, 1841-1856, 5 vols.); Merrill, Latin Hymns (Boston, 1904); Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (London, 1907). In all see indices of first lines.