Stanza 19.—
Thou sheen of flowers through clover place,
Thou lignum aloe's blooming face,
Thou sea of grace,
Where man seeks blessed landing.
Thou roof of rapture high and blest,
Through which no rain has ever passed,
Thou goodly rest,
Whose end is without ending.
Thou to help-bearing strength a tower
Against all hostile evils.
Thou parriest many a stormy shower
Which o'er us cast in darkest hour,
The hell worm's power
And other ruthless devils.
Stanza 20.—
Thou art a sun, a moon, a star,
'Tis thou can'st give all good and mar,
Yea, and debar
Our enemies' great cunning.
That power God to thee hath given
That living light, that light of heaven:
Hence see we even
Thy praise from all lips running.
Thou' st won the purest, noblest fame,
In all the earth's long story,
That e'er attached to worldly name;
It shineth brightly like a flame;
All hearts the same
Adore its lasting glory.
Stanza 82.—
To worship, Lady, thee is bliss,
And fruitful hours ne'er pass amiss
To heart that is
So sweet a guest's host-mansion.
He who thee but invited hath
Into his heart's heart love with faith,
Must live and bathe
In endless bliss-expansion.
To worship thee stirs up in man
A love now tame, now passion.
To worship thee doth waken, then
Love e'en in those love ne'er could gain;
Thus now amain
Shines forth thy love's concession.
From praising Mary, the poet passes to praising Christ.
Stanza 59.—
Thou cool, thou cold, thou warmth, thou heat,
Thou rapture's circle's central seat,
Who does not meet
With thee stays dead in sadness;
Each day to him appears a year,
Seldom his thoughts wear green bloom's gear;
He doth appear
Forever without gladness.
Thou art most truly our heart's shine
Our sun wide joy-inspiring;
A sweet heart's love for all that pine,
For all the sad a joyful shrine,
A spring divine
For the thirsty and desiring.
—Tr. by Kroeger.
CHAPTER V. ITALIAN LITERATURE.
There was no folk poetry and no popular literature in Mediaeval Italy. There were two reasons for this: (1) Italian history, political and intellectual, attaches itself very closely to that of Rome. The traditions of classic learning never died out. Hence the Italian nation was always too learned, too literary to develop a folk literature. (2) Italy was for many centuries dominated by ecclesiastical influence, and the people's minds were full of matters of religious and scholastic philosophy, which excluded art.
The Italians translated and adapted some of the epics, romances, and tales of other countries, during the earlier years of the Middle Ages; but they were written in Latin, or in a kind of French. They produced none of their own. There was no literature written in Italian before the thirteenth century.
In the thirteenth century (1250) there came the first outburst of Italian literature—religious songs, love songs, dramas, and tales. In almost every part of Italy men began to write. But it was in Tuscany, in Florence, that the most remarkable literary development of this period appeared. It was of the nature chiefly of lyric and allegoric poetry. The work of this group of Tuscan poets was really the beginning of Italian literary art. Yet it was a finished art product, not at all like the beginnings of poetry in other countries.