These are not bétter times,
Let us stand waiting!
Lo, how with áwfulness,
He, first in láwfulness,
Comes, arbitrating!”
Of course it is infinitely harder to the translator who is restricted, than to the composer who can eddy around his subject—led by the rhyme as much and as freely as he will. And this is what Bernard always does. His verses are ejaculations, desires, lamentations, longings—measured out by the “leonine hexameter” which he employs. To show the beauty still untranslated, as well as to exhibit more of the structure of the poem, I append four of these lines:
“Pax ibi florida, pascua vivida, viva medulla,
Nulla molestia, nulla tragoedia, lacryma nulla.
O sacra potio, sacra refectio, pax animarum
O pius, O bonus, O placidus sonus, hymnus earum.”