His works amount to above thirteen thousand lines, and fill an octavo volume.[30] They are all on religious subjects, and consist of rhymed Lives of San Domingo de Silos, Santa Oria, and San Millan; poems on the Mass, the Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, the Merits of the Madonna, the Signs that are to precede the Last Judgment, and the Mourning of the Madonna at the Cross, with a few Hymns, and especially a poem of more than three thousand six hundred lines on the Miracles of the Virgin Mary. With one inconsiderable exception, the whole of this formidable mass of verse is divided into stanzas of four lines each, like those in the poem of Apollonius of Tyre; and though in the language there is a perceptible advance since the days when the Poem of the Cid was written, still the power and movement of that remarkable legend are entirely wanting in the verses of the careful ecclesiastic.[31] [30] The second volume of Sanchez’s Poesías Anteriores. [31] The metrical form adopted by Berceo, which he himself calls the _quaderna via_, and which is in fact that of the poem of Apollonius, should be particularly noticed, because it continued to be a favorite one in Spain for above two centuries. The following stanzas, which are among the best in Berceo, may serve as a favorable specimen of its character. They are from the “Signs of the Judgment,” Sanchez, Tom. II. p. 274. Esti sera el uno · de los signos dubdados: Subira a los nubes · el mar muchos estados, Mas alto que las sierras · è mas que los collados, Tanto que en sequero · fincaran los pescados. Las aves esso mesmo · menudas è granadas Andaran dando gritos · todas mal espantadas; Assi faran las bestias · por domar è domadas, Non podran à la noche · tornar à sus posadas. And this shall be one of the signs · that fill with doubts and fright: The sea its waves shall gather up, · and lift them, in its might, Up to the clouds, and far above · the dark sierra’s height, Leaving the fishes on dry land, · a strange and fearful sight. The birds besides that fill the air, · the birds both small and great, Shall screaming fly and wheel about, · scared by their coming fate; And quadrupeds, both those we tame · and those in untamed state, Shall wander round nor shelter find · where safe they wonned of late.