“Rubáiyát,” Stanza lxvii,—Omar Khayyám.
Omar Khayyám, a celebrated Persian poet, mathematician, and astronomer, was born at Nishapur, in 1050 (?), and died there in 1123 (?). His fame rests on the “Rubáiyát,” or “Quatrains,”—four-line stanzas with the third unrhymed. Fitzgerald’s was the first English translation to make these quatrains widely known.
“Abélard was almost the first who awakened mankind in the ages of darkness to a sympathy with intellectual excellence ... Abélard was the first of recorded name, who taught the banks of the Seine to resound a tale of love; and it was of Eloïse that he sang.”
Pierre Abélard, a famous French scholastic philosopher and theologian, was born near Nantes, 1079, and died April 21, 1142. His romantic and tragic love for Héloïse is told in his “Story of My Misfortunes.”
Jesu! the very Thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast,
But sweeter far Thy face to see
And in Thy presence rest.
“Saint Bernard’s Hymn,”—Bernard of Clairvaux.
Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Bernard, a renowned French theologian, church father, and saint, was born at Fontaines, near Dijon, in 1091, and died at Clairvaux, January 12, 1153. He wrote five books on “Reflection,” and his famous hymn, “Jesu, the Very Thought of Thee,” is popular in the churches of our day.
“Unless the spirit of wisdom and understanding had been with me and filled me, I had never been able to construct so long a work in such a difficult metre.”
—Bernard of Cluny.
Bernard of Cluny, a famous French monk and poet, who flourished in the twelfth century, is best known for his noted work, “On Contempts of the World.”