Page:The seven great hymns of the mediaeval church - 1902.djvu/26

 lines of ordinary human emotions. It follows the meaure and catches the melody and adopts the entiment of its original; but it is of inferior texture, and in places its pathos verges on the extravagant. 4. One or the other of thee two poems has the fundamental element of imitation; it is necearily a clever piece of literary workmanhip, following the other in stanza, in meaure, in words, and often in the repetition of lines; it may be melodious, poetical, beautiful, but confeedly it cannot be in the true ene of the term original. If I mut chooe between the two, I do not heitate to ay that the econdary poem is the Specioa. The Stabat Mater eems to me one of thoe marvelous outburts which eize the hearts and imaginations of men and come down the centuries with unabated power.

The Veni Sancte Spiritus is till repreented by a ingle tranlation, that of Catherine Winkworth, which is indeed but a tranlation of a tranlation, the German. The reader will find a much more actual rendering in Mrs. Charles'