The beautiful spring delights me well. When flowers and leaves are growing; And it pleases my heart to hear the swell Of the birds' sweet chorus flowing In the echoing wood; And I love to see all scattered around Pavilions and tents on martial ground; And my spirit finds it good To see on the level plains beyond Gay knights and steeds caparison'd. Occasionally the Troubadours indulge in religious poetry though usually not of a mystical or profoundly devotional character. Even the famous Peyrols, who is so well known for his love songs, sometimes wandered into religious poetry that was not unworthy to be placed beside his lyric effusions on other topics. Peyrols is best known perhaps for his lamentations over King Richard the Lion Heart's fate, for he had been with that monarch on the crusade, and like most of the Troubadours who went with the army, drank in deep admiration for the poetic king. After his visit to the Holy Land on this occasion one stanza of his song in memory of that visit runs as follows: [Footnote 19: Translated by Roscoe.] {193} I have seen the Jordan river, I have seen the holy grave. Lord! to thee my thanks I render For the joys thy goodness gave, Showing to my raptured sight The spot whereon thou saw'st the light. Vessel good and favoring breezes, Pilot, trusty, soon shall we Once more see the towers of Marseilles Rising o'er the briny sea. Farewell, Acre, farewell, all. Of Temple or of Hospital: Now, alas! the world's decaying. When shall we once more behold Kings like lion-hearted Richard, France's monarch, stout and bold? [Illustration] TOWER OF SCALIGERS (VERONA) {194} XII GREAT LATIN HYMNS AND CHURCH MUSIC. One of the most precious bequests of the Thirteenth Century to all the succeeding centuries is undoubtedly the great Latin hymns. These sublime religious poems, comparable only to the Hebrew psalms for their wondrous expression of the awe and devotion of religious feeling, present the beginnings of rhymed poetry, yet they have been acclaimed by competent modern critics as among the greatest poems that ever came from the mind of man. They come to us from this period and were composed, most of them at least, during the Thirteenth Century itself, a few, shortly before it, though all of them received during this century the stamp of ecclesiastical and popular approval, which made them for many centuries afterward the principal medium of the expression of congregational devotion and the exemplar and incentive for vernacular poetry. It is from these latter standpoints that they deserve the attention of all students of literature quite apart from their significance as great expressions of the mind of these wondrous generations.