e miserable ones said, groaning, "O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" For a
soul of this kind knoweth that, while in the tents of Kedar, she cannot
be entirely free from spot or wrinkle, nor from stains of blackness, and
wishes to go forth and to put them off. And here we have the reason why
the spouse calls herself black as the tents of Kedar. But now, how is
she beautiful as the curtains of Solomon? Behind these curtains I feel
that an indescribable holiness and sublimity are veiled, which I dare
not presume to touch, save at the command of Him who shrouded and sealed
the mystery. For I have read, He that is a searcher of Majesty shall be
overwhelmed with the glory. I pass on therefore. It will devolve on you,
meanwhile, to obtain grace by your prayers, that we may the more
readily, because more confidently, recur to a subject which needs
attentive minds; and it may be that the pious knocker at the door will
discover what the bold explorer seeks in vain.

BERNARD OF CLUNY

Twelfth Century

BY WILLIAM C. PRIME

Little is known concerning the monk Bernard, sometimes called Bernard of
Morlay and sometimes Bernard of Cluny. The former name is probably
derived from the place of his origin, the latter from the fact that in
the introduction to his poem 'De Contemptu Mundi' he describes himself
as a brother of the monks of Cluny. He lived in the twelfth century, a
period of much learning in the church; and that he was himself a man of
broad scholarship and brilliant abilities, the Latin poem, his only
surviving work, abundantly testifies.

This poem, divided into three books, consists in all of about three
thousand lines. It is introduced by a short address in prose to Father
Peter, the abbot of the monastery, in which the author describes the
peculiar operations of his mind in undertaking and accomplishing his
marvelous poem. He believes and asserts, "not arrogantly, but in all
humility and therefore boldly," that he had divine aid. "Unless the
spirit of wisdom and understanding had been with me and filled me, I had
never been able to construct so long a work in such a difficult metre."

This metre is peculiar. In technical terms each line consists of three
parts: the first part including two dactyls, the second part two
dactyls, the third part one dactyl and one trochee. The final trochee, a
long and a short syllable, rhymes with the following or preceding line.
There