Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/264

 246 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. object, God, was infinite ; and the emotion directed toward Him might be vague and mystic, so unlimited was it. God was infinite and man's soul eternal ; what finitude could enter the love between them ? Classic metres expressed measured feelings. Hexam- eters had given voice to many emotions beautifully, with unfailing modulation of calm or storm. They had never revealed the infinite heart of God, or told the yearning of the soul responding; nor were they ever to be the instrument of these supreme disclosures in Christian times. Such unmeasured feelings could not be held within the controlled harmonies of the hexameter nor within sapphic or alcaic or Pindaric strophes. These antique forms of poetry definitely expressed their contents, although sometimes suggest- ing further unspoken feeling, which is so noticeable with Virgil. But characteristic Christian poetry, like the Latin mediaeval hymn, was not to express its mean- ing as definitely or contain its significance. Mediaeval hymns are childlike, having often a narrow clearness in their literal sense ; and they may be childlike, too, in their expressed symbolism. Their significance reaches far beyond their utterance ; they suggest, they echo, and they listen ; around them rolls the voice of God, the infinitude of His love and wrath, heaven's chorus and helFs agonies ; dies irae, dies ilia — that line says little, but mountains of wrath press on it, from which the soul shall not escape. Christian emotion quivers differently from any movement of the spirit in classic measures. The new quiver, the new shudder, the utter terror, and the utter love appear in mediaeval rhymed accentual poetry : —