[This beautiful requiem, written March 6th, 1868 (St. Victor's Day), on the death of an intimate friend, acquires a new pathos and a new solemnity, from the fact that its gifted author met his death at the hands of an assassin but one month later, on the 7th of April of the same year. Like Mozart, he wrote his own requiem]
Saint Victor's Day, a day of woe,
The bier that bore our dead went slow
And silent gliding o'er the snow—
Miserere Domine!
With Villa Maria's faithful dead,
Among the just we make his bed,
The cross, he loved, to shield his head—
Miserere Domine!
The skies may lower, wild storms may rave
Above our comrade's mountain grave,
That cross is mighty still to save—
Miserere Domine!
Deaf to the calls of love and care,
He bears no more his mortal share,
Nought can avail him now but prayer—
Miserere Domine!
To such a heart who could refuse
Just payment of all burial dues,
Of Holy Church the rite and use?
Miserere Domine!
Right solemnly the Mass was said,
While burn'd the tapers round the dead,
And manly tears like rain were shed—
Miserere Domine!
No more St. Patrick's aisles prolong
The burden of his funeral song,
His noiseless night must now be long—
Miserere Domine!
Up from the depths we heard arise
A prayer of pity to the skies,
To Him who dooms or justifies—
Miserere Domine!
Down from the skies we heard descend
The promises the Psalmist penned,
The benedictions without end—
Miserere Domine!