From that day forward have the Jews conspired Out of the world this Innocent to chase; And to this end a Homicide they hired, And, as the Child 'gan to the School to pace, 'I say that him into a pit they threw, A loathsome pit, whence noisome scents exhale; Murder will out; certes it will not fail; Know, that the honour of high God may spread, The blood cries out on your accursed deed. 'O Martyr 'stablished in virginity! Now mayest thou sing for aye before the throne, Now this poor widow waiteth all that night After her little Child, and he came not; For which, by earliest glimpse of morning light, With face all pale with dread and busy thought She at the School and elsewhere him hath sought, Until thus far she learned, that he had been In the Jews' street, and there he last was seen. 'With Mother's pity in her breast enclosed And ever on Christ's Mother meek and kind She asketh, and she piteously doth pray Where he was cast into a pit hard by. cry 'O thou great God that dost perform thy laud By mouths of Innocents, lo! here thy might; This gem of chastity, this emerald, And eke of martyrdom this ruby bright, So loud, that with his voice the place did ring. 'The Christian folk that through the Jewry went Come to the spot in wonder at the thing; And hastily they for the Provost sent; And praiseth Christ that is our heavenly King, Which done, he bade that they the Jews should bind. This Child with piteous lamentation then Remove this second Rachel from the Bier. • Torment and shameful death to every one Them therefore with wild horses did he draw, Upon his Bier this Innocent doth lie Before the Altar while the Mass doth last: The Abbot with his Convent's company Then sped themselves to bury him full fast; Yet spake this Child when sprinkled was the water, This Abbot, for he was a holy man, As all Monks are, or surely ought to be, In supplication to the Child began 66 Thus saying, "O dear Child! I summon thee In virtue of the holy Trinity Tell me the cause why thou dost sing this hymn, Since that thy throat is cut, as it doth seem." 6.66 My throat is cut unto the bone, I trow," Said this young Child, and by the law of kind I should have died, yea many hours ago; But Jesus Christ, as in the books ye find, Will that his glory last, and be in mind; And, for the worship of his Mother dear, Yet may I sing, O Alma! loud and clear. "This well of mercy Jesu's Mother sweet After my knowledge I have loved alway, And in the hour when I my death did meet To me she came, and thus to me did say, Thou in thy dying sing this holy lay,' As ye have heard; and soon as I had sung Methought she laid a grain upon my tongue. "Wherefore I sing, nor can from song refrain, In honour of that blissful Maiden free, Till from my tongue off-taken is the grain; And after that thus said she unto me, 'My little Child, then will I come for thee Soon as the grain from off thy tongue they take, Be not dismayed, I will not thee forsake!' |