Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 2.djvu/216

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 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."

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:

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: