him bravely then,
Hope sustain his spirit;
After heavy trials men
Better luck inherit!
While throughout the world you rove,
Thus uphold your banners;
Give these reasons why you prove
Hearts of men and manners:
"To reprove the reprobate,
Probity approving,
Improbate from approbate
To remove, I'm moving."
The next song is a lament for the decay of the Order and the
suppression of its privileges. It was written, to all appearances, at
a later date, and is inferior in style. The Goliardi had already, we
learn from it, exchanged poverty for luxury. Instead of tramping on
the hard hoof, they moved with a retinue of mounted servants. We seem
to trace in the lament a change from habits of simple vagabondage to
professional dependence, as minstrels and secretaries, upon men of
rank in Church and State, which came over the Goliardic class. This
poem, it may be mentioned, does not occur in the _Carmina Burana_, nor
is it included among those which bear the name of Walter Mapes or Map.
ON THE DECAY OF THE ORDER.
No. 2.
Once (it was in days of yore)
This our order flourished;
Popes, whom Cardinals adore,
It with honours nourished;
Licences desirable
They gave, nought desiring;
While our prayers, the beads we tell,
Served us for our hiring.
Now this order (so time runs)
Is made tributary;
With the ruck of Adam's sons
We must draw and carry;
Ground by common serfdom down,
By our debts confounded,
Debts to market-place and town
With the Jews compounded.
Once ('twas when the simple state
Of our order lasted)
All men praised us, no man's hate
Harried us or wasted;
Rates and taxes on our crew
There was none to levy;
But the sect, douce men and true,
Served God in a bevy.
Now some envious folks, who spy
Sumptuous equipages,
Horses, litters passing by,
And a host of pages,
Say, "Unless their purses were
Quite with wealth o'erflowing,
They could never thus, I swear,
Round about be going!"
Such men do not think nor own
How with toil we bend us,
Not to feed ourselves alone,
But the folk who tend us:
On all comers, all who come,
We our substance lavish,
Therefore 'tis a trifling sum
For ourselves we ravish.
On this subject, at this ti
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