Golden Apples and Roses Red 81

to Christ, and the snow in winter spoke to
him of her spotless innocence. Thus through
the round of the year the remembrance of
her was present about him in fair sugges-
tions; and indeed had there been any lack
of these every gift of God would have re-
called her to his mind, for was not that —
“ the gift of God” — her name?
Notwithstanding his youth, Waldo was
ripe in learning, well skilled in Latin and
Greek, and so gifted beyond measure in
poetry and music that people said he had
heard the singing of Angels and had brought
the echo of it to the earth. His hymns and
sacred songs were known and loved all
through the German land, and far beyond.
The children sang them in the processions on
the high feast days, the peasants sang them
at their work in house or field, travellers
sang them as they journeyed over the long
heaths and through the mountain-forests,
fishers and raftsmen sang them on the rivers.
He composed the Song of the Sickle which
cuts at a stroke the corn in its ripeness and
the wild flower in its bloom, and the Song of
the Mill-wheel, with its long creak and quick

clap, and the melodious rush of water from
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