DIES IRE. FROM THE LATIN OF THOMAS OF CELANO. AY of vengeance, without | King of majesty tremendous, morrow, By thy saving grace defend us, Earth shall end in flame Fount of pity, safety send us! 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, 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, 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. OT through the gate of Pain NOT Would I pass into heavenNot 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, And sees the morning rise Upon the hills of heaven. 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 Until I see heaven's light AFFI 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 SATAN'S SPEECH. ATAN harangued, Sorrowing spake, SAT He who hell henceforth Govern the abyss. He was erst God's angel, Until him his mind urged, That he would not His thought about his heart, S. (). BEETON. Then spake he the words: "This narrow place is most unlike That other that we ere knew, High in heaven's kingdom, Which my Master bestowed on me, Though we it, for the All-powerful, May not possess, Must cede our realm. Yet hath he not done rightly, Grim, bottomless; God hath us himself Swept into these swart mists, Thus he cannot us accuse of any sin With whom he will repeople The kingdom of heaven with pure souls; That we on Adam, if we ever may, And likewise on his offspring, our wrongs repair, Corrupt him there in his will, If we may it in any way devise. Now I have no confidence farther in this bright state, That which he seems long destined to enjoy, That bliss with his angel's power. We cannot that ever obtain, That we the mighty God's mind weaken; Let us avert it now from the children of men, That heavenly kingdom now we may not have it; Let us so do that they forfeit his favor, And we are hither cast Now with the Lord are they And may for themselves that weal possess That they pervert that which he with his Should have— |