If she denies herself to me,
Methinks the mistress has gone out.
In another poem he prays to Mary to allow him to tear off a small piece
of her robe, so that he may keep himself warm with it in the winter.
Like Cino da Pistoia, who commended his dying soul not to God but to his
loved one, Brother Hans commends himself to Mary:
Thus I commend my soul into thy hands,
When it must journey to those unknown lands,
Where roads and paths are new and strange to it.
And:
Oh, come to me, thou Bride of God,
When my faint soul departs from me!
There remains one more motif to consider, a motif which in a way
completes the picture of the celestial lady: As men love and desire the
women of the earth, so God loves the Lady of Heaven. St. Bernard first
expressed this naive idea, which makes God the Father resemble a little
the ancient Jupiter. "She attracted the eyes of the heavenly hosts, even
the heart of the King went out to her." "He Himself, the supreme King
and Ruler, so much desires thy beauty, that He is awaiting thy consent,
upon which He has decided to save the world.
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