Hymnum canamus gloriae,
in its abbreviated form, spread beyond the bounds of English use, and found favor with the Churches of the Continent. It has simplicity and directness, if not much poetic force and is too prolix for Church use in its original form. Mrs. Charles’s version, “A hymn of glory let us sing,” is well known. Next to it stands his
Hymnum canentes martyrum,
known to English readers by the admirable version in Hymns Ancient and Modern, which begins, “A hymn for martyrs sweetly sing.” A third notable hymn is that to the Cross:
Salve tropaeum gloriae,
in which he embodies the beautiful legend of St. Andrew’s death.
The notable thing about all Bede’s hymns is the influence which the old forms of Teutonic poetry—the alliterative staff-rhyme—have exerted on their construction. We can even trace an approximation to alliteration in his verses, while rhyme is rather an accident than an object. The verses of Beowulf and of Caedmon were in his mind when he wrote. That he could use the classic metres also, we see from his poem in hexameters on the life of Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, the great Scoto-Irish saint, whose deeds still filled the North with their echoes.
CHAPTER XII.
RABANUS MAURUS, AUTHOR OF THE “VENI, CREATOR.”
None of the great Latin hymns is more regarded than the Veni, Creator Spiritus. The Dies Irae may be grander; the Veni, Sancte Spiritus may be sweeter; the Ad perennis vitae fontem may be lovelier; the Stabat mater may be more pathetic, but, after all, the Veni, Creator holds a place of equal honor in the estimation of the Church. The Church of England, while rejecting every other Latin hymn from her services, nevertheless retained this in the offices for the ordering of priests and consecration of bishops. This is only the carrying out, indeed, of the account given by the famous but unknown monk of Salzburg who rendered so many of the Latin hymns into the old High-German tongue. He says, “Whoever repeats this hymn by day or by night, him shall no enemy visible or invisible assail.” This has always been the repute of the hymn, and there is no doubt that this attended it on its journey down the ages in the worship of the Church.
Its authorship, however, has been less carefully preserved than its text, which is notably free from mutilation and obscurity. It is really singular to find a hymn which has been so universally employed, and which has escaped in such a marvellous manner from the profane meddling of prosaic or bigoted revisers. Its doxologic final stanza is one which is not often to be found elsewhere—as though the hymn had taken and maintained a place apart. If it were the product of the Ambrosian age this would not be likely to have occurred, for all those doxologies are formal and interchangeable to a marked degree. But this is the appropriate conclusion of a unique ascription of praise to the third person of the Trinity.