I shall now make a few extracts from poems of the same century whose authors are unknown.[51] A good many such are extant. With regard to the similarity of those I choose, I would remark, that not only will the poems of the same period necessarily resemble each other, but, where the preservation of any has depended upon the choice and transcription of one person, these will in all probability resemble each other yet more. Here are a few verses from a hymn headed The Sweetness of Jesus:—
If I for kindness should love my kin, for natural reasons.
Then me thinketh in my thought [Kind is nature,
By kindly skill I should begin by natural judgment.
At him that hath me made of nought;
His likeness he set my soul within,
And all this world for me hath wrought;
As father he fondid my love to win, set about.
For to heaven he hath me brought.
Our brother and sister he is by skill, reason.
For he so said, and lerid us that lore, taught.
That whoso wrought his Father's will,
Brethren and sisters to him they wore. were.
My kind also he took ther-tille; my nature also he took
Full truly trust I him therefore [for that purpose.
That he will never let me spill, perish.
But with his mercy salve my sore.
With lovely lore his works to fill, fulfil.
Well ought I, wretch, if I were kind— natural.
Night and day to work his will,
And ever have that Lord in mind.
But ghostly foes grieve me ill, spiritual.
And my frail flesh maketh me blind;
Therefore his mercy I take me till, betake me to.
For better bote can I none find. aid.
In my choice of stanzas I have to keep in view some measure of completeness in the result. These poems, however, are mostly very loose in structure. This, while it renders choice easy, renders closeness of unity impossible.
From a poem headed—again from the last line of each stanza—Be my comfort, Christ Jesus, I choose the following four, each possessing some remarkable flavour, tone, or single touch. Note the alliteration in the lovely line, beginning "Bairn y-born." The whole of the stanza in which we find it, sounds so strangely fresh in the midst of its antiquated tones, that we can hardly help asking whether it can be only the quaintness of the expression that makes the feeling appear more real, or whether in very truth men were not in those days nearer in heart, as well as in time, to the marvel of the Nativity.
In the next stanza, how oddly the writer forgets that Jesus himself was a Jew, when, embodying the detestation of Christian centuries in one line, he says,
And tormented with many a Jew!
In the third stanza, I consider the middle quatrain, that is, the four lines beginning "Out of this world," perfectly grand.
The oddness of the last line but one of the fourth stanza is redeemed by the wonderful reality it gives to the faith of the speaker: "See my sorrow, and say Ho!" stopping it as one would call after a man and stop him.