| · | · | · | · | · |
O bone Rex, pie, juste, misericors, qui es via et janua,
Portas regni, quaesumus, nobis reseres, dimittasque facinora
Ut laudemus nomen nunc tuum atque per cuncta saecula."[1]
Here, after the opening, the first pair has seventeen syllables, and the next pair twenty-six. The last pair quoted has twenty; and the final line of seventeen syllables has no fellow. A further rhythmical advance seems reached by the following Sequence from the abbey of St. Martial at Limoges. It may have been written in the eleventh century. It is given here with the first and second line of the couplets opposite to each other, as strophe and antistrophe; and the lines themselves are divided to show the assonances (or rhymes) which appear to have corresponded with pauses in the melody:
| "(1) Canat omnis turba | |||
| (2a) | Fonte renata | (2b) | Laude jucunda |
| Spiritusque gratia | et mente perspicua | ||
| (3a) | Jam restituta | (3b) | Sicque jactura |
| pars est decima | coelestis illa | ||
| fuerat quae culpa | completur in laude | ||
| perdita. | divina. | ||
| (4a) | Ecce praeclara | (4b) | Enitet ampla |
| dies dominica | per orbis spatia, | ||
| (5a) | Exsultat in qua | (5b) | Quia destructa |
| plebs omnis redempta, | mors est perpetua."[2] | ||
A Sequence of the eleventh century will afford a final illustration of approach to a regular strophic structure, and of the use of the final one-syllable rhyme in a, throughout the Sequence:
- ↑ "May our trumpet be guided mightily by God's right hand, and may He hear our prayers with gentle and tranquil ear: for our praise will be accepted if what we sing with the voice a pure conscience sings likewise. And that we may be able, let us all beseech divine aid to be always present with us.… O good King, kind, just, and pitying, who art the way and the door, unlock the gates of the kingdom for us, we beg, and pardon our offences, that we may praise thy name now and through all the ages."
- ↑ G. M. Dreves, "Die Prosen der Abtei St. Martial zu Limoges," p. 59 (vol. vii. of Dreves's Analecta hymnica medii aevi; Leipzig, 1889). "Let every band sing with fount renewed and the Spirit's grace with joyful praise and clear mind. Now is made good the tenth part (i.e. the fallen angels), undone by fault; and thus that celestial casting out is made good in divine praise. Lo! the bright day of the Lord gleams through the broad spaces of the world: in which all the redeemed people exult because everlasting death is destroyed."
