DIES IRE. FROM THE LATIN OF THOMAS OF CELANO. AY of vengeance, without | King of majesty tremendous, morrow, and sorrow, As from saint and seer we borrow. Ah! what terror is im pending When the Judge is seen Holy Jesus, meek, forbearing, For my sins the death-crown wearing, Worn and weary, thou hast sought me, And each secret veil is Righteous Judge of retribution, rending! To the throne the trumpet sounding, Death and Nature, 'mazed, are quaking, On the written volume's pages Sits the Judge, the raised arraigning, What shall I, then, say, unfriended, Give, oh, give me absolution. As a guilty culprit groaning, Thou to Mary gavst remission, In my prayers no grace discerning, Give me, when thy sheep confiding When the wicked are confounded EUTHANASY. "Hawthorne had often expressed the hope that he might die in his sleep and unawares. And it was according to his wish that the end came to him."Biography of Hawthorne. NOT through the gate of Pain AF Would I pass into heaven Not with its earthly stain, And brow all anguish-riven. Friend, in that solemn hour, Calm thou the senses' riot With some sweet draught of power, And let me pass in quiet. Ah! happy he who lies All calmly down at even, When man has closed his story O Father, in that hour, Though hand and brain betray me, Uphold me with thy power, Nor let the change dismay me. Strengthen me with thy might To tread Death's darksome portal Until I see heaven's light Glow on the shores immortal. HENRY PETERSON. AFFLICTION. FFLICTION is the wholesome soil of virtue Where patience, honor, sweet humanity, Calm fortitude, take root and strongly flour CEDMON. EDMON is considered the earliest of the English poets. He was a man sprung from the people, and at one time in his life was a mere cowherd. He was, however, addressed one night by a stranger, as he thought, in his sleep, and asked to sing a song. He replied that he could not, when the stranger urged that he could, and that he could sing the "Creation." Cadmon then, wondering at himself, began to sing most beautiful verses. He soon afterward awoke, and went immediately to the reeve of Whitby, who, wise and good man that he was, took him to the abbey and told the wondrous story to the abbess Hilda. He recounted the last night's adventure and repeated the verses, which at once obtained the admiration of the persons present. They then explained to him other parts of Holy Scripture, whereupon he went home and produced a beautiful poem. At the request of the abbess he became a monk, and continued to write poems founded on sacred history. There is a striking resemblance between Cadmon's account of "The Fall of Man," etc., and portions of Milton's "Paradise Lost." Conybeare, in his Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, says: "The pride, rebellion and punishment of Satan and his princes have a resemblance to Milton so remarkable that most of this portion might be almost literally translated by a cento His thought about his heart, That other that we ere knew, Must cede our realm. Yet hath he not done rightly, And might one season Be without, Be one winter's space, Then with this host I But around me lie Presseth this cord of chain: I am powerless! Me have so hard A loathier landskip; The flame abateth not; Hot over hell. But we now suffer chastisement in hell, God hath us himself Swept into these swart mists, Thus he cannot us accuse of any sin That we against him in the land framed evil; pure Therefore must we strive zealously That we on Adam, if we ever may, souls ; |