Page:The seven great hymns of the mediaeval church - 1902.djvu/77

Rh be thus transferred. A German theologian (Lico, Berlin, 1843) has collected and publihed eighty-even verions, nearly all of which are in the German. In our Englih tongue the tak of rendering the Latin into vere of the ame meaure is more difficult, and ome of our tranlators have ought to reproduce the form, and others to preerve the power of the original. The reader of Scott will remember with what trength a few tanzas burt on us in the firt reading of "The Lay." In form and meaning they hardly claim the name of a tranlation, yet they have caught the pirit of the hymn with a vividnes that nothing in our language equals.

The mas was ung, and prayers were aid,

And olemn requiem for the dead;

And bells toll'd out their mighty peal,

For the departed pirit's weal;

And ever in the office cloe

The hymn of interceion roe;

And far the echoing ailes prolong

The awful burden of the ong—