us saine et la plus belle,
Qui ja ne luy sera ostee
Car par verite se fut celle
Qui fut tousjours fresche et nouvelle,
D'aymer Dieu et d'en estre aymee;
Car jusqu'au cueur fut entamee,
Et si ardamment enflamee,
Que tousjours ardoit I'estincelle;
Par quoi elle fut visitee
Et de Dieu premier confortee;
Car charite est trop ysnelle."

41. The only law of _meter_, observed in this song, is that each line
shall be octosyllabic:

Qui fut | tousjours | fresche et | nouvelle,
D'autre | ment vi | vret de | bien (ben) plaire
Et pen | soit den | tendret | de taire.

But the reader must note that words which were two-syllabled in Latin
mostly remain yet so in the French.

La _vi_ | _e_ de | Marthe | sa mie,

although _mie_, which is pet language, loving abbreviation of _amica_
through _amie_, remains monosyllabic. But _vie_ elides its _e_ before a
vowel:

Car Mar- | the me | nait vie | active
Et Ma- | ri-e | contemp | lative;

and custom endures many exceptions. Thus _Marie_ may be three-syllabled,
as above, or answer to _mie_ as a dissyllable; but _vierge_ is always, I
think, dissyllabic, _vier-ge_, with even stronger accent on the _-ge_,
for the Latin _-go_.

Then, secondly, of quantity, there is scarcely any fixed law. The meters
may be timed as the minstrel chooses--fast or slow--and the iambic
current checked in reverted eddy, as the words chance to come.

But, thirdly, there is to be rich ryming and chiming, no matter how
simply got, so only that the words jingle and tingle together with due
art of interlacing and answering in different parts of the stanza,
correspondent to the involutions of tracery and illumination. The whole
twelve-line stanza is thus constructed with two rymes only, six of each,
thus arranged:

A A B | A A B | B B A | B B A |

dividing the verse thus into four measures, reversed in ascent and
descent, or _descant_ more properly; and doubtless with correspondent
phases in the voice-given, and duly accompanying, or following, music;
Thomas the Rymer's own precept, that "tong is chefe in mynstrelsye,"
being always kept faithfully in mind.[65]

42. Here then you have a sufficient example of the pure chant of the
Christian ages; which is always at heart joyful, and divides itself into
the four great forms; Song of Praise, Song of Prayer, Song of Love, and
Song of Battle; praise, however, being the keynote of passion through
all the four forms; according t