Laudator Temporis Acti

A late 12th-century love poem, in Jakob Werner, Beiträge zur Kunde der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters aus Handschriften gesammelt, 2nd ed. (Aarau: H.R. Sauerländer & Co., 1905), p. 48, number 120, with Werner's note, from Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, Ms. C 58, fol. 12v, tr. Douglas Galbi:

All else I renounce. You I love with all my heart,
you living fount of the world’s delight.
I worship you, desire you, seek you, breathlessly follow you,
sigh for you to death, and miss you.
Come help one who is broken and say: “Arise,
I shall now heal your illness and lighten your grief,
such that you would recover unhurt and live in joy!”
I judge you sweeter than honey’s true nectar.
There is no drink so sweetly strengthening.
Let it not spoil for him whom it sustains forever!
O you, all of Christ’s creation — sun, stars, moon,
hills and mountains, valleys, sea, rivers, fountains,
tempest, showers, clouds, winds and storms,
heat, hoarfrost, cold, ice, snow, lightning, rocks,
meadow, grove, foliage, forest, grasses, flowers
exclaim “Hail!” and with me greet her tenderly.
I beg not for love’s limit, but that love endure eternally.
Do not show others what I have sent to you alone!

Omnia postpono, te pectore diligo toto,
Tu mundanarum fons vivus deliciarum.
Te colo, te cupio, peto te, lassatus anhelo,
Ad te suspiro moribundus, teque requiro,
Concite succurre ruituro, dicque: 'resurge,        5
Nunc ego sanabo morbum, maestumque levabo,
Tantum convaleas, sospes, laetus quoque vivas!'
Verum praecellis nectar me iudice mellis;
Est potus nullus tanto dulcedine fultus.
Qui non vilescat illi, quem semper inescat        10
Omnis factura Christi: sol, sidera, luna,
Colles et montes, valles, mare, flumina, fontes,
Tempestas, pluvię, nubes, ventique, procellę,
Cauma, pruina, gelu, glacies, nix, fulgura, rupes,
Prata, nemus, frondes, arbustum, gramina, flores        15
Exclamando: vale! mecum praedulce sonate.
Non precor extremum, sed quod perduret in ęvum.
Missa tibi soli multis ostendere noli!

11-15 Anklang an einen bekannten liturgischen Text.

Lines 14-15 are hexameters consisting entirely of nouns in asyndeton. For similar hexameter lines in Greek and Latin see:

• Some Lines in Lucretius
• Asyndeton Filling Hexameters
• Asyndeton Filling Hexameters in Sidonius
• Verse-Filling Asyndeton
• Verse-Filling Asyndeton: Some Greek Examples
• Another Greek Example of Verse-Filling Asyndeton
• More Examples of Asyndeton Filling Hexameters
• Asyndeton Filling Hexameters in Corippus
• Twelve Gods
• Seven Cities
• A Hexameter Consisting of Nouns in Asyndeton
• More Hexameters Consisting of Words in Asyndeton
• Hexameters Consisting of Words in Asyndeton: Dracontius
• Zopyrus' Victims
• A Latin Hexameter Consisting of Adjectives in Asyndeton
• Hexameters Consisting Entirely of Words in Asyndeton: More Greek Examples
• A Sojourn in the Country
• Destruction
• Hexameters Consisting Entirely of Words in Asyndeton: A Horatian Example
• Asyndeton Filling Hexameters: Bernard of Cluny, De Contemptu Mundi, Book I
• A Good Land
• A Greek Hexameter Consisting of Adjectives in Asyndeton
• Trifles
• Some Hexameters in Heiric of Auxerre's Life of St. Germanus
• Volturnalem Palatualem Furinalem