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| Detail from the Pantheon's Madonna of the Rail. |
Behold,
the price of courtly dance,
The
fruit of the forbidden glance,
The
head of Christ's great harbinger!
The
voice, which did repentance call,
From
sylvans rude to palace hall ;
Hush'd
is that voice and tongue, and ne'er again shall stir.
Nay, is that tongue for ever still'd?
Nay,
it anew his ears hath fill'd
That
they can nothing hear no more;
Abroad
the Baptist's shadow stalks,
In
secret to his spirit talks
Of
that incestuous crime more sternly than before.
But
holy John ! - he was a cloud
Pregnant
with light, which earth-ward bow'd,
Big
with the rays of dawning day,
Disclosing
the eternal Sun;
As
its effulgence now begun,
Then
hasted he himself in air to melt away.
For
Thine alone, whose footsteps dwell
In
seas of light inscrutable,
The
glory and the praise is Thine;
Thee
the Father everlasting,
And
Thee the Incarnate Son we sing,
And
Thee who bindest all, the Paraclete Divine.
Ecce,
saltantis pretium puellre
Hymn
of Mattins for The Beheading of St. John the Baptist
Hymns
Translated from the Parisian Breviary, 1834
