“Come therefore now, my gentle fere,
    Whom as my heart I hold full dear;
    Enter my little room, which is
    Adorned with quaintest rarities: 
    There are the seats with cushions spread,
    The roof with curtains overhead;
    The house with flowers of sweetest scent
    And scattered herbs is redolent: 
    A table there is deftly dight
    With meats and drinks of rare delight;
    There too the wine flows, sparkling, free;
    And all, my love, to pleasure thee. 
    There sound enchanting symphonies;
    The clear high notes of flutes arise;
    A singing girl and artful boy
    Are chanting for thee strains of joy;
    He touches with his quill the wire,
    She tunes her note unto the lyre: 
    The servants carry to and fro
    Dishes and cups of ruddy glow;
    But these delights, I will confess,
    Than pleasant converse charm me less;
    Nor is the feast so sweet to me
    As dear familiarity.

    “Then come now, sister of my heart,
    That dearer than all others art,
    Unto mine eyes thou shining sun,
    Soul of my soul, thou only one! 
    I dwelt alone in the wild woods,
    And loved all secret solitudes;
    Oft would I fly from tumults far,
    And shunned where crowds of people are. 
    O dearest, do not longer stay! 
    Seek we to live and love to-day! 
    I cannot live without thee, sweet! 
    Time bids us now our love complete. 
    Why should we then defer, my own,
    What must be done or late or soon? 
    Do quickly what thou canst not shun! 
    I have no hesitation.”

From Du Meril’s collections further specimens of thoroughly secular poetry might be culled.  Such is the panegyric of the nightingale, which contains the following impassioned lines:[4]—­

    “Implet silvas atque cuncta modulis arbustula,
    Gloriosa valde facta veris prae laetitia;
    Volitando scandit alta arborum cacumina,
    Ac festiva satis gliscit sibilare carmina.”

Such are the sapphics on the spring, which, though they date from the seventh century, have a truly modern sentiment of Nature.  Such, too, is the medieval legend of the Snow-Child, treated comically in burlesque Latin verse, and meant to be sung to a German tune of love—­

Modus Liebinc.  To the same category may be referred the horrible, but singularly striking, series of Latin poems edited from a MS. at Berne, which set forth the miseries of monastic life with realistic passion bordering upon delirium, under titles like the following—­Dissuasio Concubitus in in Uno tantum Sexu, or De Monachi Cruciata.[5]

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 1:  Du Meril, Poesies Populaires Latines Anterieures au Deuxieme:  Siecle, p. 240.]

[Footnote 2:  Du Meril, op. cit., p. 239.]