On The Saints Of The Church At York Poem by Alcuin

There the Eboric scholars felt the rule
Of Master Aelbert, teaching in the school.
Their thirsty hearts to gladden well he knew
With doctrine's stream and learning's heavenly dew.

To some he made the grammar understood,
And poured on others rhetoric's copious flood.
The rules of jurisprudence these rehearse,
While those recite in high Eonian verse,
Or play Castalia's flutes in cadence sweet
And mount Parnassus on swift lyric feet.

Anon the master turns their gaze on high
To view the travailing sun and moon, the sky
In order turning with its planets seven,
And starry hosts that keep the law of heaven.

The storms at sea, the earthquake's shock, the race
Of men and beasts and flying fowl they trace;
Or to the laws of numbers bend their mind,
And search till Easter's annual day they find.

Then, last and best, he opened up to view
The depths of Holy Scripture, Old and New.
Was any youth in studies well approved,
Then him the master cherished, taught, and loved;
And thus the double knowledge he conferred
Of liberal studies and the Holy Word.