PART V.
LEGENDARY AND POETICAL.
Well beseems
That we should help them wash away the stains
They carried hence; that so, made pure and light,
They may spring upward to the starry spheres.
Ah! so may mercy tempered justice rid
Your burdens speedily; that ye have power
To stretch your wing, which e'en to your desire
Shall lift you.
—DANTE.
LEGENDARY AND POETICAL.
DIES IRÆ.
The day of wrath, that dreadful day
Shall the whole world in ashes lay,
As David and Sybils say.
What horror will invade the mind,
When the strict Judge, who would be kind,
Shall have few venial faults to find!
The last loud trumpet's wondrous sound
Must thro' the rending tombs rebound,
And wake the nations underground.
Nature and death shall with surprise
Behold the pale offender rise,
And view the Judge with conscious eyes.
Then shall with universal dread,
The sacred mystic book be read,
To try the living and the dead.
The Judge ascends His awful throne,
He makes each secret sin be known,
And all with shame confess their own.
O then! what int'rest shall I make,
To save my last important stake,
When the most just have cause to quake!
Thou mighty formidable King!
Thou mercy's unexhausted spring!
Some comfortable pity bring.
Forget not what my ransom cost,
Nor let my dear-bought soul be lost,
In storms of guilty terror tost.
Thou, who for me didst feel such pain,
Whose precious blood the cross did stain,
Let not those agonies be vain.
Thou whom avenging powers obey,
Cancel my debt (too great to pay)
Before the said accounting day.
Surrounded with amazing fears,
Whose load my soul with anguish hears,
I sigh, I weep, accept my tears.
Thou, who wast mov'd with Mary's grief,
And by absolving of the thief,
Hast given me hope, now give relief.
Reject not my unworthy prayer,
Preserve me from the dangerous snare,
Which death and gaping hell prepare.
Give my exalted soul a place
Among the chosen right hand race,
The sons of God, and heirs of grace.
From that insatiate abyss,
Where flames devour and serpents hiss,
Promote me to Thy seat of bliss.
Prostrate, my contrite heart I rend,
My God, my Father, and my Friend:
Do not forsake me in my end.
Well may they curse their second birth,
Who rise to a surviving death.
Thou great Creator of mankind,
Let guilty man compassion find.—Amen.