Page:The glory of Paradise a rhythmical hymn.djvu/8

, et azyma facta;"—"cum spiritu caro spiritualis facta concordat."—"Illic arcana singulorum patent oculis omnium; illic omnium mentes in mutui amoris unione conflatæ, nullâ invicem varietate dissentiunt, sed in communi voluntatis studio omnes unanimiter fœderantur. Apud nos, cum una festivitas colitur, altera non habetur; illic autem omnium solemnitatum semper est coacervata lætitia, quia illi præsentes assistunt qui solemnitatum sunt proculdublo causa. Deest illic ignorantia—quia in Sapientiâ cui uniti sunt, cuncta sciunt"—"Illic odoris suavitas cunctorum excedit rites aromatum, omnem superat fragrantiam pigmentorum. Illic Beatorum aures harmoniæ dulcedinis organa meloda permulcent. Illic pratis jucundâ satis amœnitate vernantibus, candentia lilia nunquam decidunt, rosæque purpureæ cum croceis floribus non marcescunt." We find also, "pressuras et ærumnas," in the eighth book of the Cardinal's Letters, (Ep. vi.) This identity of expression, hitherto unnoticed, so far as I am aware, proves beyond a doubt the authorship of the Hymn, which might otherwise with less certainty be supposed to be the work of Damiani rather than of Augustine, whose style its singular terseness and beauty resemble much more nearly than anything we find in the general writings, prose or verse, of the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia.

The composition is styled by the Benedictine editors of Augustine, in one place, a "Hymnus," in another, "Rhythmus." The Cardinal himself speaks of his "Rhythmici Versus;" so we may conclude "Hymnus Rhythmicus" to be the title the author would have himself approved. The distinction, however, between rhythm and verse, thus seemingly assumed, cannot be maintained as regards the Trochaic measure, which at no period of Latin literature submitted itself of necessity to the trammels of regular scansion, as it always did in the written poetry of the Greeks. We have, indeed, the regular tetrameters of Prudentius, "rotatiles trochæos" as he styles