For the literature see Julian, p. 294.
In the ritual the Dies Irae is used for All Souls' Day and for requiem masses. The most famous musical setting is by Mozart.
Daniel says of this hymn, 'Each word is a peal of thunder.' Trench says, 'The triple rhyme has been likened to blow following blow of the hammer on the anvil.'
Goethe introduces the Dies Irae into a scene of the first part of Faust; the remorse of Gretchen becomes overwhelming as she hears the hymn pealing through the cathedral, the culmination corning with the repetition of the words Quid sum miser tunc, dicturus?
Sir Walter Scott thus quotes and summarizes at the end of The Lay of the Last Minstrel:
Far the echoing aisles prolong
The awful burthen of the song,—
DIES IRAE, DIES ILLA,
SOLVET SAECLUM IN FAVILLA;…
Thus the holy fathers sung.
HYMN FOR THE DEAD.
That day of wrath, that dreadful day,
When heaven and earth shall pass away,
What power shall be the sinner's stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?
When, shrivelling like a parched scroll,
The naming heavens together roll;
When louder yet, and yet more dread,
Swells the high trump that wakes the dead.
Oh! on that day, that wrathful day,
When man to judgment wakes from clay,
Be THOU the trembling sinner's stay,
Though heaven and earth shall pass away.