XXII.
In spinas demtas a Christi capite cruentatas.
Accipe, an ignoscis? de te sata germina, miles.
Quam segeti est messis discolor illa suae!
O quae tam duro gleba est tam grata colono?
Inserit hic spinas: reddit et illa rosas.
Upon the thornes taken downe from our Lord's head bloody.
Knowst thou this, souldier? 'tis a much-chang'd plant, which yet
Thyselfe didst set;
'Tis chang'd indeed: did Autumn e're such beauties bring
To shame his Spring?
O, who so hard an husbandman could ever find
A soyle so kind?
Is not the soile a kind one, thinke ye, that returnes
Roses for thornes? Cr.
ANOTHER VERSION.
Take, soldier—know'st them not?—thy planted germs;
A harvest how unlike to its seed-corn!
What soil yields husbandman such kindly terms?
The rose he gathers, where he planted thorn. G.
XXIII.
Joan. iii. 1-21.
Nox erat, et Christum, Doctor male docte, petebas
In Christo tenebras depositure tuas.
Ille autem multo dum te bonus irrigat ore,
Atque per arcanas ducit in alta vias,
Sol venit, et primo pandit se flore diei,
Ludit et in dubiis aureus horror aquis.
Sol oritur; sed adhuc, et adhuc tamen, ô bone, nescis.
Sol oritur, tecum nox tamen est, et adhuc
· · · · · · · ·
Non coeli, illa fuit, nox fuit illa tua.