80
Was fashioned for our blissful Lady free;
Her to salute, and also her to pray
To be our help upon our dying day:
If there is more in this, I know it not:
Song do I learn,--small grammar I have got.' 85

XIII "'And is this song fashioned in reverence
Of Jesu's Mother?' said this Innocent;
'Now, certes, I will use my diligence
To con it all ere Christmas-tide be spent;
Although I for my Primer shall be shent, 90
And shall be beaten three times in an hour,
Our Lady I will praise with all my power.'

XIV "His Schoolfellow, whom he had so besought,
As they went homeward taught him privily
And then he sang it well and fearlessly, 95
From word to word according to the note:
Twice in a day it passed through his throat;
Homeward and schoolward whensoe'er he went,
On Jesu's Mother fixed was his intent.

XV "Through all the Jewry (this before said I) 100
This little Child, as he came to and fro,
Full merrily then would he sing and cry,
O _Alma Redemptoris!_ high and low:
The sweetness of Christ's Mother pierced so
His heart, that her to praise, to her to pray, 105
He cannot stop his singing by the way.

XVI "The Serpent, Satan, our first foe, that hath
His wasp's nest in Jew's heart, upswelled--'O woe,
O Hebrew people!' said he in his wrath,
'Is it an honest thing? Shall this be so? 110
That such a Boy where'er he lists [1] shall go
In your despite, and sing his hymns and saws,
Which is against the reverence of our laws!'

XVII "From that day forward have the Jews conspired
Out of the world this Innocent to chase; 115
And to this end a Homicide they hired,
That in an alley had a privy place,
And, as the Child 'gan to the school to pace,
This cruel Jew him seized, and held him fast
And cut his throat, and in a pit him cast. 120

XVIII "I say that him into a pit they threw,
A loathsome pit, whence noisome scents exhale;
O cursed folk! away, ye Herods new!
What may your ill intentions you avail?