some sort, highly successful rendering into similar English verse, of Bernard of Cluny's hymn mentioned above, where the sad and stately melody of,—
"Hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur,
Hic breve fletur,
Non breve vivere, non breve plangere,
Retribuetur,"
Emai soun front noun lusignèsse
Que de jouinesso; emai n'agùesse
Ni diadèmo d'or ui mantèu de Damas,
Vole qu'en glòri fugue aussado
Coune uno rèino, e caressado
Pèr nosto lengo mespresado
Car cantan que pèr vautre, o pastre e gènt di mas!
Or thus:—
A maiden of Provence I sing;
I tell the love-tale of her spring,
Across La Crau's wide wheat-fields follow her to the sea.
Mine be the daring aspiration
To sing of her in Homer's fashion,
My lady of the lowly station,
Unknown beyond the prairies of lone La Crau was she.
What though her brow was never crowned
Save with the youth that rayed it round?
What though she bore no golden crown and wore no damask cloak?
Yet I would have her raised in glory
As a queen is, and set before me
In our poor speech to tell her story.
Because I sing for you alone, shepherds and farmer-folk!
But the thought of keeping this up for twelve cantos was appalling, and suggestive of nothing so much as the nursery romance of "The Little Man and Little Maid."
