“JESU DULCIS MEMORIA.”
“Jesus the Very Thought of Thee.”
The original of this delightful hymn is one of the devout meditations of Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian monk (1091–1153). He was born of a noble family in or near Dijon, Burgundy, and when only twenty-three years old established a monastery at Clairvaux, France, over which he presided as its first abbot. Educated in the University of Paris, and possessing great natural abilities, he soon made himself felt in both the religious and political affairs of Europe. For more than thirty years he was the personal power that directed belief, quieted turbulence, and arbitrated disputes, and kings and even popes sought his counsel. It was his eloquent preaching that inspired the second crusade.
His fine poem of feeling, in fifty Latin stanzas, has been a source of pious song in several languages:
Jesu, dulcis memoria
Dans vera cordi gaudia,
Sed super mel et omnium
Ejus dulcis presentia.
Literally—