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Page:Lauspatriaeceles00bern.djvu/17

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INTRODUCTION.


THE Poem, a Portion of which is here freely translated, is an elaborate and elegant Production of the Middle Ages. It was written by Bernard, a Monk or Abbot of Clugni, who flourished in the 12th Century, and is, perhaps, the most beautiful of the many Latin Hymns which have sprung from the Abbeys of France. The favourite Passages in our popular Hymnology are those which give Expression to what one of these old Latin Poets has called "the heavenly Home-sickness;" but they all seem passionless and cold by the Side of these glowing Hexameters.