175] you may at first fancy, is the especially childish part
of the work. Not so. It is the especially chivalric and Christian part
of it. It characterises the Christian chant or canticle, as a higher
thing than a Greek ode, melos, or hymnos, or than a Latin carmen.

Think of it, for this again is wonderful! That these children of
Montrose should have an element of music in their souls which Homer had
not,--which a melos of David the Prophet and King had not,--which
Orpheus and Amphion had not,--which Apollo's unrymed oracles became mute
at the sound of.

A strange new equity this,--melodious justice and judgment as it
were,--in all words spoken solemnly and ritualistically by Christian
human creatures;--Robin and Bobbin--by the Crusader's tomb, up to 'Dies
irae, dies illa,' at judgment of the crusading soul.

You have to understand this most deeply of all Christian minstrels, from
first to last; that they are more musical, because more joyful, than any
others on earth: ethereal minstrels, pilgrims of the sky, true to the
kindred points of heaven and home; their joy essentially the sky-lark's,
in light, in purity; but, with their human eyes, looking for the
glorious appearing of something in the sky, which the bird cannot.

This it is that changes Etruscan murmur into Terza rima--Horatian Latin
into Provencal troubadour's melody; not, because less artful, less wise.

Here is a little bit, for instance, of French ryming just before
Chaucer's time--near enough to our own French to be intelligible to us
yet.

'O quant tres-glorieuse vie,
Quant cil quit out peut et maistrie,
Veult esprouver pour necessaire,
Ne pour quant il ne blasma mie
La vie de Marthe sa mie:
Mais il lui donna exemplaire
D'autrement vivre, et de bien plaire
A Dieu; et plut de bien a faire:
Pour se conclut-il que Marie
Qui estoit a ses piedz sans braire,
Et pensait d'entendre et de taire,
Estleut la plus saine partie.

La meilleur partie esleut-elle
Et la plus saine et la plus belle,
Qui ja ne luy sera ostee
Car par verite se fut celle
Qui fut tousjours fresche et nouvelle,
D'aymer Dieu et d'en estre aymee;
Car jusqu'au cueur fut entamee,
Et si ardamment enflammee.
Que tous-jours ardoit l'estincelle;
Par quoi elle fut visitee
Et de Dieu premier comfortee;
Car charite est trop ysnelle.'

The only law of _metre_, observed in this song, is that