The Latin Hymn-writers and Their Hymns

by Samuel Willoughby Duffield

Knowing not whom thou dost love?

Seek for Jesus! Thy repenting

Shall obtain what none might prove.

Whence this groaning and this weeping?

For the purest joy is thine;

In thy breast thy secret keeping

Of a balm, lest thou repine;

Hidden there whilst thou art reaping

Barren care for peace divine.

In the Spe mercede et corona we have the Churchly view of Thomas Becket’s career and its bloody end; and the O Rex, orbis triumphator and Urbs Aquensis, urbs regalis represent the German effort to raise Charles the Great to a place among the saints of the calendar.