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LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
PRINCETON, N. J.
Division -v--
Section.
A:..
X
■^
dl}i^tJ-6c4j
atin
putjS
ORIGINAL TRANSLATIONS
IN FOUR PAkTS
I. DIES IR^ (In Thirteen Versions)
II. STABAT MATER (Dolorosa)
III. STABAT MATER (Speciosa)
IV. OLD GEMS IN NEW SETTINGS
ABRAHAM COLES, M. D., LL. D.
ILLUSTRATED
^^
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
i8q2
COPYRIGHTED ACCORDING TO LAW, BY
J. AcKERMAN Coles, M.D.
1892
NEWARK, N. J.
ADVERTISER PRINTING HOUSE,
1892
DIES IR^
DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPIECE.
THE " Dies Irae " of painting by the greatefl of paint-
ers, Michel Angelo's famous fresco of the Laft Judg.
merit, confefTedly the moft extraordinary pifture in the
hiftory of Art, occupies the end wall of the Sifline Chapel at
Rome, and is forty-five feet wide by fifty-seven feet high.
It was completed and firft thrown open to the public on
Chrirtmas Day, 1546. The artifl: was then in his sixty-
seventh year, and had been employed on the paintings and
cartoons nearly nine years. " We have seen," says one,
" Michel Angelo, and he is terrible." In the centre of this
vaft compofition, confiding of at leaft two hundred figures in
every conceivable attitude, appears the majeftic form of the
Saviour in the aft of pronouncing sentence upon the wicked,
" Depart," etc. By his fide is the Virgin. Near her, to-
wards the right, is a figure with the back turned, done in the
ftyle of the fineft antique ; and next beyond is Adam, ex-
preflTing by the contour of his members and his relaxed
muscles extreme old age. Between these two, half-way
down, can be seen a face, wi;h long flowing beard, answer-
ing to our idea of an ancient patriarch. Farther to the
right is a woman, defigned with exquifite grace and ele-
gance, with a young girl clinging to her and hiding her face
in terror. On the left of the Saviour, the ftooping figure is
Peter, in the act of surrendering the keys ; the face close to
his is Moses. The group ))ehind represents the prophets in
ftudied and ftriking attitudes. Below are the martyrs, with
the symbols of their sufferings. Juft at the feet of the Vir-
gin is St. Lawrence, with his gridiron {la gratkola) ; then
comes St. Bartholomew, with a knife in one hand and his
(kin in the other ; St. Catharine is known by her broken
wheel ; St. Hippolytus, by his currycombs with iron teeth ;
St. Seballian, by his arrows held in his left hand. Higher up
is St. Andrew on a cross, a fine figure. Above and around
is an innumerable company of the bleiled. In the angles at
DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPIECE.
the higheft part are angels, bearing, on one fide, the cross, the
crown of thorns, the dice used in calling lots on Chrift's
garment ; and on the other, the pillar of scourging, etc.
Far below is another group of angels, blowing seven trum-
pets to wake the dead, two of them holding in their hands
the books of life and death. At the right, near the bottom,
are seen the dead in all ftages of decay, quickened and
llowly rifing, — saints and angels affifting the righteous in their
ascent to heaven. In one case a demon makes conteft for
polfefTion. On the left is presented the terrific spedacle of
the condemned dragged down by demons, — among them, a
wicked pope, with the keys in his hand, falling headlong
the prey of exultant fiends ; also a licentious cardinal, a liv-
ing contemporary of the artift. " Forms and faces," says
one, " more trembling and convulsed with despair were never
embodied or conceived." Charon, the internal ferryman, in
accordance with Dante's description, —
" With eyes of burning coal, collefts them all,
Beckoning, and each that lingers with his oar
Strikes." Inferno, Canto iii. vv. 102 — 104.
In the extreme left corner, at the loweft point, are two
heads, "one a cowl unto the other," borrowed likewise from
Dante, — Count Ugolino gnawing the Ikull of his enemy: —
" Upon the wretched fkull his teeth
He faftened, like a maltitf's, 'gainll the bone
Firm and unyielding."
Inferno, Canto xxxiii. vv. 74-76.
Close by is Midas, with afl's ears and serpent around the
body, — a likeness of, it is said, and a savage satire upon,
Meller Biaggio, his critic. At the footof the picture, in the
middle, is the pit of hell, with demons at its mouth. — The
miniature copy here given, photographed ffom an outline
engraving by Piroli, firlt publilhed at i-'aris in 1808, faithful
and full, down to the minuteft anatomical details, was deemed
not an inappropriate embellifliment to this volume. \i df-
fired, it can be indefinitely magnified by a glass.
THE LAST JUDGMENT.
(micbael anqelo.)
tn mvix
IN
THIRTEEN ORIGINAL VERSIONS
BY
ABRAHAM COLES, M. D., Ph.D.
SIXTH EDITION.
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1891
ILLUSTRATIONS.
DIES IR^.
Last yiidgment. (M. Angelo — Rubens — Cornelius).
O what fear shall it engender,
When the Judge shall come in splendor,
Strict to mark and just to render !
Christus Remunerator. (Ary Scheffer.)
Be there. Lord, my place decided,
With Thy sheep from goats divided.
Kindly to Thy right hand guided !
STABAT MATER (Dolorosa).
Mary at the Cross. (Carlo Dolce — Paul Delaroche).
Stood th' afflicted mother weeping.
Near the cross her station keeping.
Whereon hung her Son and Lord.
STABAT MATER (Speciosa).
Nativity. La Notte. (Correggio).
Virgin and Child. Madonna di San Sisto. (Ra-
phael.)
Oh what grace to her allotted.
Blessed mother and unspotted
Of the Sole Begotten One !
VI ILLUSTRATIONS.
OLD GEMS IN NEW SETTINGS
67. Augustine and his Af other ) / , c v, ff ^
Hope and Faith j" ^-^T ^cnetter.)
O country most dear, our longing eyes here
As they view thee afar with desire are acliing.
Ecstasy and Praye?'. (Landelle.)
My innermost eyes, thus piercing the skies,
From the mind's highest peaks delighted behold thee.
Now in thee I am glad, now in me I am sad,
I sob and I sigh with breast heaving and swelling.
INTRODUCTION.
T would be difficult to find, in the
whole range of literature, a produiSlion
to which a profounder intereft attaches
than to that magnificent canticle of the
Middle Ages, the DIES IR^. Faftening on that
which is indeftru6lible in man, and giving fitter ex-
preffion than can elsewhere be found, to experiences
and emotions which can never cease to agitate him,
it has loft after the lapse of fix centuries none of its
original freftiness and transcendent power to affedi
the heart. It has commanded alike the admiration
of men of piety and men of tafte. By common con-
sent, it is as Daniel remarks : sacne poeseos sumrnum
decus et Ecclesice La tines Kei[ifi?uov est pretiofijjimum.
Among gems it is the diamond. It is solitary in
VI INTRODUCTION.
*ts excellence. Of Latin Hymns, it is the beft
known and the acknowledged mafterpiece. There
are others which poiTess much sweetness and beauty,
but this ftands unrivalled. It has superior beauties,
with none of their defedls. For the moft part they
are more or less Romifh, but this is Catholic, and
not Romifh at all. It is universal as humanity. It
is the cry of the human. It bears indubitable marks
of being a personal experience.
The author is supposed to have been a monk : an
incredible suppofition truly did we not know that a
monk is also a man. One thing is certain, that the
monk does not appear, and that it is the man only
that speaks. He no longer dreams and drivels. He
is effe6lually awake. The veil is lifted. He sees
Chrift coming to Judgment. All the tumult and the
terror of the Laft Day are present to him. The final
pause and syncope of Nature ; the (huddering of a
horror-ftruck Universe ; the down-rufhing and wreck
of all things — all are present. But these material
circumftances of horror and amazement, he feels are
as nothing compared with " the infinite terror of
being found guilty before the Juft Judge." This
INTRODUCTION. Vll
fingle confideration swallows up every other. The
interefts of an eternity are crowded into a moment.
One great secret of the power and enduring popu-
larity of this Hymn is, undoubtedly, its genuineness.
A vital fmcerity breathes throughout. It is a cry de
trofundh ; and the cry becomes sometimes — so in-
tense are the terror and solicitude — almoft a Ihriek.
It is in the higheft degree pathetic. The Muse
is " Mater Lachrymarum, Our Lady of Tears."
Every line weeps. Underneath every word and syl-
lable, a living heart throbs and pulsates. The very
rhythm, or that alternate elevation and depreflion of
the voice, which prosodifts call the arfis and the
thefiSf one might almoft fancy were synchronous
with the contraction and the dilatation of the heart.
It is more than dramatic. The horror and the dread
are real : are actual not adted. A human heart is
laid bare, quivering with life, and we see and hear its
tumultuous throbbings. We sympathize — nay, be-
fore we are aware, we have changed places. We,
too, tremble and quail and cry aloud.
All true Lyric Poetry is subje6live. The Dies
Ikj£ is, as we have seen, remarkable for its intense
via INTRODUCTION.
subje6livity ; and whoever duly appreciates this char-
aiteriftic, will have little difficulty in underftanding
its superior efFe£liveness over everything else that
has been written on the same theme. The life of
the v/riter has pafled into it and informs it, so that it
is itself alive. It has vital forces and emanations.
Its life mingles with our life. It enters into our
veins and circulates in our blood. A virtue goes out
from it. It is eledlrically charged, and conta6l is
inftantly followed by a fhock and fhuddering.
Springing from its subjectivity, if not identical with
it, we would further notice, the intenfifying effe6t of
what may be called its personalism, in other words
its ego-ism. It is I and not We. Subftitute the
plural pronoun for the fingular, and it would lose
half its pungency. We have had occafion to observe
the weakening effe6l of this in tranflation. The
truth is, the feeling is of a kind too concentrated and
too exa6ling to allow itself to be diffipated in the
vagueness of any grouping generality. The heart
knoweth its own bitterness. There is a grief that
cannot be fhared, neither can it be joined on to
another's. It is not social nor common. It is mine
INTRODUCTION. IX
and not yours. It is exclufive, not because it is sel-
fish, but because it has depths beyond the soundings
of ordinary sympathy.
This is especially true of some of the intenser
forms of religious experience, proceeding as they do
from that which is moft intimate and innermoft, the
penetralia of a man's consciousness, his moft secret
and peculiar self. There is an inner and privileged
san6luary of the heart, which is kept as a chamber
locked up. It is hidden and sacred. It may be,
that the individual, dwelling habitually in the outer
courts of his being, rarely if ever enters into it him-
self. For man is twofold. A veil divides between
the outer and the inner man. Gross and sensual,
the majority of mankind are averse to lifting the con-
cealing medium, for fear of unwelcome revelations
and discoveries respeitina: themselves. Goethe is an
example of this portentous preference for half knowl-
edge : " Man," he says, " is a darkened being ; he
knows not whence he came, nor whither he goes ;
he knows little of the world and less of himself. I
know not myself, and may God prote6t me from it."
In converfion to God this veil is rent from top to
b
X INTRODUCTION.
bottom. There is a self-revelation. Behind the
curtain, there in the Moft Holy Place, where ought
to be the Shekinah, the Ihining, senfible Manifefta-
tion of the Divine Presence, he beholds the Abomi-
nation of Iniquity set up. He awakes to the flart-
ling fa6l that he is " without God and without hope
in the world." A voice of urgency is sounding in
his ears : " Flee from the Wrath to Come." He
anticipates the terrors of the Judgment. He feels
that there is not a moment to lose. Instinct
prompts, and the Word of God enjoins, that he seek
to save himself firft. He knows not whether others
are in as bad a case as he. But of his own guilt and
danger he has no doubt. An offended Maker con-
fronts him, him in particular. So he prays and ago-
nizes. His may not be "the thews which throw the
w^orld" — he is conscious of weakness rather than
ftrength — yet fmgly and alone, he wreftles with God
like Jacob, and prevails like Israel.
The Hymn is not only lyrical in its effence, but
also in its form. It is inftin6t with mufic. It fmgs
itself. The grandeur of its rhythm, and the affo-
nance and chime of its fit and powerful words, are^
INTRODUCTION. Xi
even in the ears of those unacquainted with the Latin
language, suggeftive of the richeft and mightieft har-
monies. The verse is ternaiy ; and the ternary
number, having been efteemed anciently a symbol
of perfedion and held in great veneration, may pos-
sibly have had something to do with the choice of
the ftrophe. Be this as it may, its metrical ftruc-
ture, as all agree, conftitutes by no means the leaft of
its extraordinary merits. Trench, in his Selections
from Latin Poetry, speaks of the metre as being
grandly devised, and fitted to bring out some of the
nobleft powers of the Latin language ; and as being,
moreover, unique, forming the only example of the
kind that he remembers. He notices the solemn
efFeil of the triple rhyme, comparable to blow fol-
lowing blow of the hammer on the anvil. Knapp, in
his Liederschatz, likens the original to a blaft from
the trump of resurredion, and declares its power
inimitable in any tranflation.
HISTORY OF THE HYMN.
HE authorfhip of the Dies Irae is as-
cribed, apparently upon good grounds,
to Thomas of Celano, so called from a
small town of that name in Italy. He
was a friend and pupil and subsequently the biog-
rapher of St. Francis of Aflifi, the founder of the
order of Minorites, (called also PViars-Minor, Grey
Friars or Franciscans, being one of the four orders
of mendicant friars,) inftituted in 1208. Wadding,
an Irifhman and a Minorite, who lived in the firft
half of the seventeenth century, and who wrote a
hifl:ory of his order, expreffly refers it to Celano.
He mentions two other hymns or Sequences com-
posed by him, one beginning : Fregit v'lSlor virtua-
lis ; the other : SanSfitatis nova figna. The circum-
XIV HISTORY OF THE HYMN.
ftance of the Dominican Sixtus Senenfis affecting
to sneer at it, calling it rhythmus inconditus^ is re-
garded as confirmatory of the opinion, that it was at
leaft the work, of a Franciscan ; the bitter rivalries
subfifting between the two orders affording, it is
thought, the moft plaufible explanation of a criticism
so manifeftly splenetic and unjuft. Another cor-
roborative circumftance is its early admiffion into
the Franciscan MifTals, by which means a knowl-
edge of it wi"* spread throughout Europe. The
corre6lness of this inference is further suftained by
the fa6l, that, inscribed on a marble flab in the
Franciscan Church of St. Francis at Mantua, was
found one of the earliefl: copies of the hymn, rep-
resenting, it is believed, the text as it came from
the hands of the author. Dr. Mohnike, a learned
and able editor of the Dies Irae, furnifhes an old
copy of the Mantuan text, which differs from the
Received Text chiefly in this, that the firfl four
ftanzas are additional. They are here given with
a tranflation annexed ; also the heading which is as
follows :
HISTORY OF THE HYMN. XV
Meditatio Vetufta et Venufta
de NovifTimo Judicio
quse Mantuse in aede D. Francisci in
marmore legltur.
I. Cogita, anima fidelis,
Ad quid respondere velis,
Chrifto venture de coelis.
Weigh with solemn thought and tender,
What response, thou, Soul, wilt render,
Then when Chrift fliall come in splendor
a. Cum deposcet rationem
Ob boni omiflionem,
Ob mali commiflionem.
And thy life fhall be inspe6led.
All its hidden guilt detefled.
Evil done and good negle£ted.
3. Dies ilia, dies irse,
Quam conemur prasvenire
Obviamque Deo ire ;
For that day of vengeance neareth
Ready be each one that heareth \y
God to meet when He appeareth.
XVI HISTORY OF THE HYMN.
4. Seria contritione,
Gratia; apprehenlione,
VitiE emendatione.
By repenting, by believing,
By God's offered grace receiving,
By all evil courfes leaving.
The succeeding fixteen verfes are the same, with
flight variations, as those of the Church or Received
text ; but in place of the next verse, which forms
the 17th of this, beginning: Oro supplex et acclinh^
the Mantuan copy has the following for its 2 1 ft and
concluding ftanza :
21. Confers ut beatitatis
Vivam cum juftlficatis
In sevum aeternitatis. Amen.
That in fellowfbip fraternal
With inhabitants supernal
I may live the life eternal. Amen.
That the abbreviation of the poem, by the omis-
fion of the four opening ftanzas, adds greatly to its
general, and ftill more to its lyric effecStiveness, there
can be no doubt. The reje6led verfes, partaking of
HISTORY OF THE HYMN. XVli
a quiet and meditative charadler, impair the force of
the lyric element. In its present form, all is vehe-
ment ftir and movement, from the grand and ftart-
ling abruptness of its opening, to the sw^eet and
powerful pathos of its solemn and impreffive close.
Befides Celano, various other names have had
their supporters for the honor of the authorfhip of
this poem. It has been attributed to Gregory the
Great, who lived at a period some fix hundred
years earlier. But this would involve the neceflity
of suppofmg that a poem of such extraordinary merit
could remain unknown and unnoticed during so
many centuries, which is not at all likely. Befides,
it is certain, that, while rhyme was not altogether
unknown or unused at that time, it had by no means
reached that ftate of perfe6lion which this poem
exhibits.*
Leonard Meifter, a Swiss writer, claimed that
Felix Hammerlin, (Latinized into Malleolus,) a
Church dignitary of Zurich, born in 1389, and who
died about 1457, "^^^ ^^e author of Dies Irae, because
among Hammerlin's poems he found a manuscript
of this hymn ; but the evidence is quite conclufive,
* See Appendix — Origin of Latin Rhyme.
XVlll HISTORY OF THE HYMN.
that the hymn was in exiftence before his time. In
the Hammerlin text, the i6th verse is followed by
eight more, probably supplied by Hammerlin him-
self. They are here subjoined.
17. Oro supplex a ruinis,
Cor contritum quaii cinis :
Gere curam mei finis !
From the ruins of creation,
Make I contrite supplication :
Interpose for my salvation !
18. Lachrymosa die ilia.
Cum resurget ex favilla,
Tanquam ignis ex scintilla,
On that day of woe and weeping.
When, like fire from spark upleaping.
Starts, from afhes where he's fleeping,
19. Judicandus homo reus,
Huic ergo parce, Deus !
Efto semper adjutor mens !
Man account to Thee to render;
Spare the miserable offender !
Be my Helper and Defender !
HISTORY OF THE HYMN. xlx
20. Quando coeli sunt movendi,
Dies adsunt tunc tremendi,
Nullum tempus poenitendi.
When the heavens away are flying.
Days of trembling then and crying.
For repentance time denying;
21. Sed salvatis lasta dies,
Et damnatis nulla quies,
Sed daemonum effigies.
To the saved a day of gladness, /
To the damned a day of sadness,
Demon forms and fhapes of madness.
22. O tu Deus majeftatis,
Alme candor Trinitatis,
Nunc conjunge cum beatis !
God of infinite perfeftion,
Trinity's serene refleftion,
Give me part with the elefllon!
23. Vitam meam fac felicem
Propter tuam genetricem,
Jefle florem et radicem.
XX HISTORY OF THE HYMN.
Happiness upon me fliower.
For Thy Mother's sake, with power
Who is Jefle's root and flower.
24. Frsefta nobis tunc levamen,
Dulce noftrum fac certamen,
Ut clamemus omnes. Amen !
From Thy fulness comfort pour us,
Fight Thou with us or fight for us,
So we'll fhout, Amen, in chorus.
Taking for slanted that the Mantuan was the
original text, it would follow that the truncation of
the four introdu6lory verfes spoken of had already
taken place at the time of Hammerlin ; and it is
furthermore obvious that the 17th and 1 8th verfes
of the Received Text muft have been formed out of
the firft three of the supplemented verfes of Ham-
merlin, as follows, viz. : by subftituting, in the 17th
verse, " et acclinis " for *' a ruinis,"' and taking
the firft two lines of the two succeeding verfes,
being triplets, to make up the i8th verse, which
confifts of four lines. Bating a few verbal varia-
tions, the firft fixteen verfes of the Hammerlin and
HISTORY OF THE HYMN. XXI
Church texts correspond. The laft named is founded
on the Roman Miffal firft publiflied in 1567, under
the san6lion and after the revifion of the Council of
Trent. It forms the bafis of the present, as it does
of moft tranflations.
A brief reference to some of the more important
variations in the text, and an explanation of certain
allufions which occur therein, may not be unintereft-
ing. The firft line, Dies irce^ dies illa^ plainly
points to a paflage of Scripture from the Vulgate, —
Zephaniah I. 15. The whole verse reads thus :
" Dies ir^, dies illa, dies tribulationis et anguftias,
dies calamitatis et miseriae, dies tenebrarum et caligi-
nis, dies nebulae et turbinis, dies tubae et clangoris."
In the third line, the change of the Mantuan read-
ing, " Petro " into " David," as it now ftands,
may have been due, it is conje6lured, to a feeling
that there was greater appropriateness in David's
being affociated with the ante-Chriftian Sibyl. From
the averfion felt to the introdu6lion of a heathen
Sibyl into a Chriftian and ftill more a Church
hymn, a MifTal of the diocese of Metz, publiflied in
1778, reje£ling the third line, adopts, but without
XXll HISTORY OF THE HYMN.
the authority of a fingle manuscript, another reading
as follows :
Dies iras, dies ilia,
Crucis expandens vexilla,
Solvet sseclum in favilla.
Day of wrath, that day amazing,
High the bannered cross upraifing.
While the universe is blazing.
The allufion here is to the Tign of the comino- of
the Son of Man in heaven, mentioned in Matthew
xxiv. 3 ; and is indicative of the belief, that the fign
there spoken of would have its fulfilment in the
apparition of a cross in the Iky. But the older and
the true reading is doubtless the other, which refers
to the Sibyl as bearing concurrent teftimony with
the prophet of the Old or the New Teftament,
David or Peter, (Psalm xcvi. 13 ; xcvii. 3 ; xi.
6 ; 2 Peter iii. 7,) touching the deftrudtion of the
world and the final judgment. The 2d, 7th, and 8th
books of the " Sibylline Oracles " are full of pas-
sages which refer to these, but it is probable that the
reference here is more immediately to verfes ex-
HISTORY OF THE HYMN. XXIH
trailed therefrom, found in LacStantius (Divin. In-
ftitut. lib. vii. De Vita Beata, cap. 16—24). I" the
earherages of the Church, these pretended prophecies
were regarded with no little veneration ; wherefore
it is by no means uncommon to find Chriflian writ-
ers placing them fide by fide with Scriptural proph-
ecies, and, as in the case before us, making solemn
appeal to them. The discovery of their true char-
a6ler as worthless forgeries was reserved for a later
period.
This poem, which, there is every reason to believe,
was originally the inspiration of retirement, the soli-
tary outpouring of
" a suppliant heart all crufhed
And crumbled into contrite duft," —
to adopt the language of Crafhaw's verfion at the 1 7th
verse, — came afterwards, when it had pafTed into
Church use, to receive the title of Sequence, from
the place affigned to it in the service of the Mass
for the Dead. The precise time when this occurred
cannot be determined, but it muft have been early,
for Albizzi speaks of it as being in common use
as a Sequence in 1385. For an explanation of this
Xxiv HISTORY OF THE HYMN.
term, the reader is referred to the Appendix at the
end of this volume.
If the origin of the hymn be somewhat obscure,
not so have been its subsequent fortunes. Through
the long centuries that have elapsed fmce the
time it firft became known to the world, its ex-
traordinary merits have been fteadily recognized.
Its light has been that of a ftar, whose keen and.
diamond luftre intermits not nor grows dim, but
ftiines on the same from age to age. Its miflion
from the beginning has been one of power. To
some, there is reason to believe, it has been " the
power of God unto salvation." Scattered every-
where along its track are seen the luminous foot-
prints of its victorious progress as the subduer of
hearts. The greateft minds have delighted to bear
teftimony to its worth. Goethe evinced his appre-
ciation of it by introducing certain verses of it into
his "Fauft," — with how grand an effect we all know.
Boswell relates of Dr. Johnson, that, " when he
would try to repeat the celebrated Prosa Ecclefiajl'ica
pro Afortuisy beginning : Dies ir^^ dies iila, he could
never pass the flanza ending thus : Tantus labor non
fit cajjiis^ without burfting into a flood of tears."
HISTORY OF THE HYMN. XXV
It is said that Ancina, a ProfefTor of Medicine ir.
the Univerfity of Turin, was so ftrongly affe£ted by
hearing one day the Dies Irae chanted in the service
for the dead, that he determined to abandon the
world. He afterwards became Bifhop of Saluzzo.
Milman, in his " Hiftory of Chriftianity," speaking of
the Latin poetry of the Chriftian Church, remarics :
" There is nothing, in my judgment, to be compared
with the monkifh Dies irce^ dies ilia." To these
names might be added those of many other eminent
scholars and critics, all bearing like teftimony. But
the crowning proof of its unrivalled excellence is
found in the fact, that, mingled with the fighs and
gaspings of diffolving Nature, the measured beat of
its melodious rhythm has been so often heard ; now,
it may be, in the soft murmur of words half audible,
and now in the clear tones of a diftinct utterance,
iffuing from the pale and trembling lips of the dying.
The Earl of Roscommon, we are told, repeated with
great energy and devotion, in the moment when he
expired, two lines of his own tranflation of the 17th
verse : —
" My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me in my end ! "
d
XXVI HISTORY OF THE HYMN.
Sir Walter Scott evinced his regard for it in the same
afFe6ling manner, during his laft hours : " We very
often," says his biographer, " heard diftin6l]y the
cadence of the Dies Irae."
It is certainly somewhat remarkable, that, vv^hile
thus solemnly alTociated with the dying moments of
these two illuftrious mafters of song, who had likewise
employed their pens in the tafk of rendering it into
Englifli, it fhould have had a conne6lion not diflim-
ilar with the death of that great composer by whose
means this immortal poem has come to be worthily
wedded to immortal mufic. It is well known that
Mozart's Requiem is founded on it. This, his
greateft work, perhaps, was deftined also to be his
lafl, of which, it is said, he had a solemn presenti-
ment. His death occurred before it was entirely
finifhed. Befides Mozart, other diilinguifhed com-
posers, such as Cherubini, Haydn, Jomelli, Palaftrina,
and Pergolefi, have exercised their genius upon the
same theme and the same text.
TRANSLATIONS OF THE HYMN.
HE number of tranflations made of this
hymn into different languages it were
not easy to eflimate. Those in Ger-
man are particularly numerous. In a
work dedicated to these, edited by Dr. F. G. Lisco,
(Berlin, 1840,) as many as seventy verfions, more or
less complete, are given ; the number being further
increased three years afterwards by the addition of
seventeen others, appended to a volume of tranfla-
tions, by the same editor, of the Stabat Mater.*
* For the loan of both the above works the writer is in-
debted to the Rev. William R. Williams, D. D., who, in a
Note, afterwards somewhat enlarged and thrown into an Appen-
dix, affixed to an Address on the " Conservative Principle of
our Literature," firfl: publifhed in 1843, ^nd subsequently in-
cluded in his volume of " Miscellanies," has, with his usual
XXVlil J-RANtiLATIONS OF THE HVjMN.
There is one in P rench, one in Romaic or Modern
Greek, one in Dutch, and one in Latin, all the reft
being German. In nearly every case, pains have
been taken to preserve the exait measure and form
of the original. The superior flexibility of the Ger-
man, and its greater supply of v/ords adapted for
double rhyme, give tranflators in that language a
decided advantage. The difficulty involved in tripli-
cating the double rhymes, owing to the poverty of
our language in v/ords suitable for the purpose, with-
out praClifing awkward and inelegant inverfions, is
probably the reason why English tranflators, even
where they have been careful to retain the triplet
form of the ftanza, have failed to preserve the
rhyming close.
Crafliaw's, one of the oldeft and nobleft of the
English tranflations, and which in the opinion of an
eminent critic was not surpafled by anything he ever
wrote, is done in quatrains, or fingle rhymed couplets
eloquence and exhauftive learning, given a very full and inftruc-
tive account of this hymn and its tranflations ; adding in the
later editions a verfion of his own, one of the first made in
ternary double rhyme.
TRANSLATIONS OF THE HYMN. XXIX
repeated ; and, on account of the freeness of the ren-
dering, might more properly be called a reprodu6lion
than a tranflation. The Earl of Roscommon, cele-
brated in Dryden's verse as the greateft poet of his
time, was the author of a verfion praised by Pope
as the bed of his poetical performances ; although he
is confidered as having borrowed both from Crafliaw
and Dryden. It is in triplets like the original, but
without double rhyme, and the verse is iambic in-
flead of trochaic.
The few verfes introduced by Sir Walter Scott
into the " Lay of the Laft Minftrel," and which have
found their way into almoft all the more recent Col-
lections of Hymns used in our Churches, though
spirited and impreilive, can scarcely be called a trans-
lation, being little more than an echo of one or two
of the leading sentiments of the Latin original.
Another familiar hymn, contained in moft Hymn
books, commencing,
" Lo ! He comes in clouds descending,"
purports to be a tranflation of the Dies Irae ; but
in respect neither to form nor spirit does it corre-
XXX TRANSLATIONS OF THE HYMN.
spond very accurately to the original. Although there
are other verfions of more or less merit, some made
by our own scholars, a further enumeration might be
tedious. " It is not wonderful," as Trench remarks,
"that a poem such as this fhould have continually
allured and continually defied tranflators."
The Author of the Tranflations here publifhed
scarcely knows how to fliield himself from the im-
putation of presumption to which his attempt ex-
poses him. The number of his verfions is Thir-
teen. The first fix have the somewhat rare merit,
so far at leaft as Englifh verfions are concerned, of
being metrically conformed, both as it respects
rhyme and rhythm, to the original. The five suc-
ceeding ones are like in rhythm, but vary from the
original in not preserving the double rhyme. The
one which follows is in iambic triplets, like Roscom-
mon's ; and the laft in quatrains, after the manner
of Crafhaw's verfion.
It has been the aim of the Tranflator to be in all
cafes as faithful as poflible to the senfe and spirit
of the original, and likewise to the letter, but not
so flavifhly as to preclude variety. He has en-
TRANSLATIONS OF THE HYMN. XXXJ
deavored to carry out likeness in unliiceness, and to
give to each verfion, so far as pra6licable, the inteieft
of a diftinct poem. How far he has succeeded
others muft judge. The preservation of the double
rhyme involved some special difficulties, which he has
overcome as well as he could ; but he would not be
surprised if some readers preferred the eafier metres,
and indulges the hope that the multiplication of ver-
fions may serve, among other things, to meet this
diverfity of tafte. But there are some, if he mis-
takes not, who enjoy those pleasing surprises in
viewing an obje6l, that result from an altered atti-
tude and a new angle of vision, — the curious changes
which follow every fresh turn of a revolving kaleido-
scope,— and the writer is willing therefore to believe
that such, at any rate, will not be displeased at this
attempt to supply the deficiency of one verfion by
another and yet another, in the hope that thereby
the original may be exhibited, approximately at least,
in its solid entireness.
Young, in his " Effay on Lyric Poetry," aflerts
that difficulty overcome gives grace and pleasure,
and he accounts for the pleasure of rhyme in general
X.XXII TRANSLATIONS OF THE HYMN.
upon this principle. Having failed in his own case
to afford an exemplification of great success in this
particular, his critic and biographer, Johnson, some-
what sarcaflically remarks : " But then the writer
muft take care that the difficulty is overcome ; that
is, he muft make rhyme confift with as perfe6l
senfe and expreffion as would be expected, if he
were perfectly free from that (hackle." Hence, the
greater the difficulties to be surmounted, the greater
is the need of elaboration, until art conceals art.
The present Tranflator, recognizing fully the pro-
priety of the rule here ftated, does not feel that he
has any right to plead the arduousness of his tafk, as
an excuse for any inftances, if such there be, of
forced and unnatural conftru6lion, resorted to in
order to meet the exigencies of rhyme or metre.
What is called poetic license is, he is aware, a
license of power and grace, and not of weakness and
deformity, being tantamount to a license to dance or
fing, in place of ordinary walking or speaking. Po-
etic chains, undoubtedly, were meant not to confine
and cripple, but to regulate movement in conformity
with settled laws ; the obje£l being, not to puniih
TRANSLATIONS OF THE HYMN. XXXlll
speech, but to exalt and honor it, — to grace language,
not disgrace it.
To preserve, in connection with the utmost fidelity
and ftri6lness of rendering, all the rhythmic merits
of the Latin original, — to attain to a vital likeness as
well as to an exa(£t literalness, at the same time that
nothing is sacrificed of its mufical sonorousness and
billowy grandeur, easy and graceful in its swing as
the ocean on its bed, — to make the verbal copy,
otherwise cold and dead, glow with the fire of lyric
passion, — to refleil, and that too by means of a fingle
verfion, the manifold aspects of the many-sided orig-
inal, exhaufting at once its wonderful fulness and
pregnancy, — to cause the white light of the primitive
so to pass through the medium of another language
as that it fhall undergo no refra6lion whatever, —
would be defirable, certainly, were it practicable ;
but so much as this it were unreasonable to expe6l
in any tranflation.
All the verfions here given were written and nearly
ready for the press more than two years ago ; but,
influenced partly by a senfe of their imperfedlness,
and partly by a doubt as to the reception that a book
e
XXXIV TRANSLATIONS OF THE HYMN.
exclufively devoted to a fingle hymn might meet
with from the pubhc, the Translator has delayed
their appearance until now, when, encouraged by
the favorable opinion exprefled by some, whose
names, were it proper to give them, would be re-
garded, he doubts not, as an apology for his bold-
ness, he ventures the experiment of publication.
He does not deny that the amount of public favor
that has been already accorded to two of the ver-
fions, viz., those marked 1. and 11., publifhed anony-
moufly in the "Newark Daily Advertiser" sev-
eral years fmce, the firft as long ago as 1847, ^^^
had something to do with overcoming his diftruft.
To avoid misapprehenfion, it is right to ftate, that
two verses of the firft were introduced into Mrs.
Stowe's " Uncle Tom's Cabin," and by these acci-
dental means have enjoyed a world-wide currency.
More recently this verfion has been honored with
a place in the " Plymouth CoUedlion of Hymns and
Tunes," edited by Henry Ward Beecher, and set
to mufic. It was, so far as the Tranflator knows,
the firft attempt, with a fingle exception, to repro-
duce in English the ternary double rhyme of the
original.
DE NOVISSIMO JUDICIO.
lES irae, dies ilia
Solvet saeclum in favilla,
Tefte David cum Sibylla.
Quantus tremor eft futurus,
Quando Judex eft venturus,
Cundta ftriile discuflurus !
Tuba, mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulchra regionum,
Coget omnes ante thronum.
Mors ftupebit et natura,
Quum resurget creatura
Judicanti responsura.
DIES IRJE.
Liber scriptus proferetur,
In quo totum continetur,
De quo mundus judicetur.
Judex ergo quum sedebit,
Quidquid latet, apparebit,
Nil inultum remanebit.
Quod sum miser tunc di6lurus,
Quem patronum rogaturus,
Quum vix juftus fit securus ?
Rex tremendae majeftatis,
Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
Salva me, fons pietatis!
Recordare, Jesu pie,
Quod sum causa tuae viae,
Ne me perdas ilia die !
Quaerens me sedifti lafTus,
Redemifti crucem paflus :
Tantus labor non fit caflus!
DIES IRiE.
Jufte Judex ultionis,
Donum fac remiflionis
Ante diem rationis !
Ingemisco tanquam reus,
Culpa rubet vultus meus :
Supplicanti parce, Deus !
Qui Mariam absolvifti,
Et latronem exaudifti,
Mihi quoque spem dedifti.
Praeces meae non sunt dignae,
Sed tu bonus fac benigne
Ne perenni cremer igne !
Inter oves locum praefta,
Et ab haedis me sequeftra,
Statuens in parte dextra!
Confutatis maledi6lis,
Flammis acribus addidtis,
Voca me cum benedi6lis !
DIES IRM.
Oro supplex et acclinis,
Cor contritum quasi cinis
Gere curam mei finis !
Lachrymosa dies ilia,
Qua resurget ex favilla,
Judicandus homo reus :
Huic ergo parce, Deus !
I.
AY of wrath, that day of burning,
Seer and Sibyl speaic concerning.
All the world to afhes turning.
Oh, what fear fhall it engender,
When the Judge fliall come in splendor,
Stridl to mark and juft to render !
Trumpet, scattering sounds of wonder.
Rending sepulchres asunder.
Shall resiftless summons thunder.
All aghaft then Death fhall fhiver.
And great Nature's frame fhall quiver.
When the graves their dead deliver.
DIES IR^.
Volume, from which nothing 's blotted,
Evil done nor evil plotted,
Shall be brought and dooms allotted.
When fhall fit the Judge unerring,
He'll unfold all here occurring.
Vengeance then no more deferring.
What fhall / say, that time pending ?
Ask w^hat advocate's befriending.
When the juft man needs defending ?
Dreadful King, all power pofTeffing,
Saving freely those confefling.
Save thou me, O Fount of Blefling !
Think, O Jesus, for what reason
Thou didft bear earth's spite and treason.
Nor me lose in that dread season !
Seeking me Thy worn feet hafted.
On the cross Thy soul death tafted :
Let such travail not be wafted !
DIES IRJE.
Righteous Judge of retribution !
Make me gift of absolution
Ere that day of execution !
Culprit-like, I plead, heart-broken.
On my cheek (hame's crimson token:
Let the pardoning word be spoken!
Thou, who Mary gav'ft remiflion,
Heard'ft the dying Thief's petition,
Cheer'ft with hope my loft condition.
Though my prayers be void of merit.
What is needful, Thou confer it.
Left I endless fire inherit !
Be there. Lord, my place decided
With Thy ftieep, from goats divided,
Kindly to Thy right hand guided !
When th' accursed away are driven,
To eternal burnings given.
Call me with the blessed to heaven!
DIES IR^.
I beseech Thee, proftrate lying,
Heart as afhes, contrite, fighing.
Care for me when I am dying !
Day of tears and late repentance,
Man fhall rise to hear his sentence :
Him, the child of guilt and error,
Spare, Lord, in that hour of terror !
II.
AY fhall dawn that has no morrow.
Day of vengeance, day of sorrow,
As from Prophecy we borrow.
It fhall burn, that day of trouble,
As a furnace heated double,
And the wicked fhall be flubble.
O, what trembling, when the rifted
Skies fhall fhow the Judge uplifted.
And all flrictly fhall be fifted!
Trump fhall sound a blafl appalling.
On the grave's deep flillness falling.
Small and great before Him calling.
Death with fear fhall be o'ertaken,
Nature to her base be fhaken.
When the fleeping dead fhall waken.
10 DIES IRJE.
Volume fhall be brought, whose pages
Regifter the deeds of ages,
Whence the world fhall have juft wages.
When that Court fhall hold its sefHon,
Every mouth fhall make confeflion,
Left unpunifhed no transgreflion.
How, alas ! in that dread season,
Shall I answer for my treason.
When the righteous fear with reason ?
Awful King, who nothing craveft,
Since Thyself full ransom gavefl,
Save Thou me, who freely savefl!
Me, for whom, with love so tender,
Thou didft leave Thy throne of splendor,
Jesus, do not then surrender !
Wearily for me Thou toiledft,
Diedft for me and Satan spoiledft :
Let not triumph whom Thou foiledfl !
DIES IRJE. II
Thou, whose frown will be damnation.
Grant me earneft of salvation,
Ere that day of consummation !
Culprit-like, 1, self-convicted,
Blufhing, proftrate, and affli6ted,
Kneel for mercy unreftridled.
Thou, who Mary's faith rewardedft,
Pardon to the Thief accordedft.
Me, too, trembling hope afFordedft.
Poor my prayers, but give ensample
Of Thy goodness rich and ample.
Left insulted Juftice trample !
With Thy chosen flock unspotted.
Severed from the herd besotted.
Be my place that day allotted !
When Thy curse fliall blaft and wither,
Doom to hell and banifh thither,
Bid me with the blelTed, Come hither !
12
DIES IR^.
Care for me as one who feareth,
One who hafteth when he heareth,
When my solemn exit neareth!
When the light of that day flafhes,
And man rises from his afhes
At Thy bar account to render,
Spare then, Lord, the pale offender ?
III.
AY of Vengeance and of Wages,
Fiery goal of all the ages,
Burden of prophetic pages !
Guilty wretches, vainly fleeing
From that flaming Eye, whose seeing
Searches all the depths of being.
Wakened by that Trump of Wonder,
Answering Earthquakes, roaring under.
Heave and split the ground asunder ;
And the buried generations.
People of all times and nations.
Live again and take their ftations.
Each immortal pale offender.
Round the Great White Throne of Splendor,
Stri(5l account to God to render i
14 DIE^ I?--5.
Who, unmocked and unmiflaken,
Shall pronounce the doom unihaken.
And long flumbering vengeance waken.
What if weighed and found deficient ?
Standing at that bar omniscient.
Who hath righteousness sufficient ?
Dreadful Majef^y of Heaven I
Freely thy salvation's given,
Fount of Mercy, save me even I
Me, for whom Thou fbame didll borrow,
Trod'ft the paths of earthly sorrow.
Lose not on that dreadful morrow I
Seeking me Thou weary sankeft,
All my cup of trembling drankeft.
Nor from death, to save me, shrankeft.
Aluft I fink yet to perdition ?
God of Vengeance, grant remiffion,
Ere that Day of Inquifition !
DIES IRJE. 15
Filled with Ihame and confternatlon.
Lifting hands of supplication.
Spare me, God or my Salvation I
Let such grace be manifefted,
As on weeping Mary refted,
As was towards the Thief attefted !
Though no worth in me discerning,
Spurn not, though I merit spurning :
Rescue me from endless burning !
When divifion is efFe6led
'Mong the race of men coUefted,
Leave me not with the rejedled !
When Thy curse from Thee fhall sever,
Kindling hells, extinguifhed never,
Join me to Thyself forever !
From the afhes of contrition.
From the depths I make petition :
Grant m.y soul a safe dismiffion !
i6
DIES IRJE.
When that day fhall snare th' unwary.
And fhall guilty man unbury,
Spare me then. Dread Adversary !
AY of Prophecy ! it flafhes,
Falling spheres together dafhes,
And the world consumes to aflies.
O, what fear of wrath impending,
When the Judge is seen descending,
Inquifition ftrict intending !
God's awakening Trump fhall scatter
Summons through the world of matter,
And the Throne of Death ihall fhatter.
What amazement, when forgotten
Generations, dead and rotten.
Suddenly are rebegotten!
Book and Record universal
Shall be opened for rehearsal.
Whence the doom without reversal.
3
l8 DIES IR^.
When by that dread Judge inspe6led.
Nothing fhall pass undetected,
Unavenged nor uncorrected.
o
How fhall I, a wretch unftaDle,
Bide that hour inevitable,
When the juft man scarce is able?
Dreadful King, from Thee, the Giver,
Flows salvation like a river :
Fount of Mercy, me deliver !
Thou, who, touched with my condition,
Cam'st to save me from perdition,
Be Thou mindful of Thy miflion !
Let Thy death for my offences,
Horror of Thy soul and senses,
Be not void of consequences!
Blot my fins, ere that revifion,
Day of ultimate decifion.
When Thy foes are in deriiion !
DIES IR^. 19
From my eyes repentance guflies,
O'er my cheeks spread crimson blufties :
Spare the worm Thy terror crufhes !
Thou, who wert of old moft gracious
Ev'n to finners moft audacious,
Is Thy mercy now less spacious ?
Worthless alll the prayers I offer :
Grace muft seal what grace doth proffer,
Else I perifh with the scoffer.
When Thou maiceft separation.
With Thy sheep aflign my ftation,
Saints of every age and nation !
When the malison eternal
Banifhes to fires infernal.
Bid me enter realms supernal !
Thou, who doft, with care unfleeping,
Keep that trufted to Thy keeping,
Save my eyes from endless weeping !
20
DIES IR^.
Day of tears, consuming, cruel.
With a burning world for fuel !
Man fliall rise from glowing embers,
Made complete in all his members :
Ah! what plea will then be valid.
When the finner, trembling, pallid,
Waits to hear his sentence given ?
Spare him then, O God of Heaven!
V.
AY of vengeance, end of scorning,
World in afties, world in mourning,
Whereof Prophets utter warning !
O, what trembling, when the falling
Rocks and mountains hear men calling,
" Hide me from that face appalling ! "
Freezing fear the blood will thicken,
Death and Hell be horror-ftricken,
When the myftic Trump fhall quicken
All the buried duft of ages, —
Monarchs, chieftains, ftatesmen, sages,
A£tors on unnumbered ftages, —
Summoned to the dread recital
Of that Record ftricSt and vital,
Basis of a juft requital.
22 DIES IRJE.
Every mafk of falsehood riven, —
Guilt, from every covert driven,
Shall to punifhment be given.
*Mid the horror and confufion
Of that sorrowful conclufion
Of each miserable delufion,
Whither, ah! fhall I betake me?
Thou, O King, vi^hose terrors fhake me,
Of Thy grace a trophy make me !
Jesus ! by Thine incarnation,
By Thy miflion of salvation.
Then avert juft condemnation!
By Thy pity, love unfailing.
By the cross's bitter nailing,
Let not all be unavailing !
Dread Avenger of transgreflion.
Cleanse these lips that make confeilion.
Ere th' awards of that laft seflion.
DIES IR^. 23
Spare a culprit, groans faft heaving,
SeIf-convi(5led, blufhing, grieving,
In Thy power and grace believing.
Since Thy nature doth not vary,
Thou, who heard'ft the Thief and Mary,
My transgreflions blot and bury I
Worthless works behind me cafting —
Grace muft save, not prayer nor fafting,
From the fire that's everlafting.
On Thy right hand fix my ftation
With the chosen generation.
In the iheep-fold of salvation !
When Thy curse the wicked chases.
With the bleft in heavenly places
Call me to Thy dear embraces!
Care for me, whom guilt abafhes,
Proftrate, contrite, heart as afhes.
When that day of terror flafhes !
H
DIES IR^.
Day of weeping and of wailing,
Human hearts and fates unveiling !
Then, when Time fliall be no longer,
And the ftrong yields to the Stronger,
Death and Hell their dead surrender.
And the Sea its own fhall tender,
Multitudinous, unbounded
Generations rise aflounded,
Each to answer for his finning,
He who lived at the beginning.
He who when the world is hoary,—
Spare, O, spare. Thou God of Glory!
VI.
AY of wrath and confternation,
Day of fiery consummation,
Prophefied in Revelation I
O, what horror on all faces,
When the coming Judge each traces.
Flaming, dreadful, in all places !
Trump fhall sound, and every fingle
Mortal slumberer's ears fhall tingle.
And the dead fhall rise and mingle :
All of every tribe and nation.
That have lived fince the creation,
Answering that dread citation.
Book, where adlions are recorded.
All the ages have afforded.
Shall be brought and dooms awarded.
4-
26 DIES IR^.
Judge, who fits at that aflizes,
Shall, deceived by no disguises,
Try each work that man devises.
How fhall I, a wretch polluted,
Answer then to fins imputed.
When the juft man's case is mooted ?
Awful Monarch of Creation !
Saving without compensation,
Save me. Fountain of Salvation!
Lose me not then, Jefus, seeing
I am Thine by gift of being,
Doubly Thine by price of freeing !
Thou, the Lord of Life and Glory,
Hung'ft a vi6lim gafhed and gory;
Let not all be nugatory !
Pardon, Thou whose vengeance smireth,
But whom mercy moft delighteth.
Ere that reck'ning day affrighteth!
DIES IR^. 27
As a culprit, Hand I groaning,
Bluftiing, my demerit owning :
Sprinkle me with blood atoning !
Thou, who Mary's sins remittedft,
And the softened Thief acquittedft,
Likewise hope to me permittedft.
Weak these prayers Thy throne aflailing}
But let grace, o'er guilt prevailing,
Save me from eternal wailing !
While the goats afar are driven,
'Mid Thy fheep me place be given,
Blood-wafhed favorites of Heaven !
While " Depart ! " fhall doom and gather
Those to flame, address me rather :
*' Come thou blefled of my Father ! "
In my final hour, when faileth
Heart and flefh, and my cheek paleth,
Grant that succor which availeth !
28
DIES IR^.
Day unutterably solemn !
Crypt and pyramid and column,
Ifle and continent and ocean,
Rocking with a fearful motion,
Shall give up, a countless number
Starting from their long, long {lumber,
Horror ftamping every feature.
While is judged each fmful creature,
End of pending controversy :
Spare Thou then, O God of Mercy !
VII.
AY of wrath, that day of days,
Present to my thought always,
[| When the world (hall burn and
blaze !
O, what trembling, O, what fear.
When th' Omniscient Judge draws near.
Scanning all with eyes severe!
When the Trump of God (hall sound
Through the vague and vaft profound
Of the regions under ground ;
And th' innumerable dead,
Answering to that summons dread.
Shall forsake their dufty bed ;
And that Book of ancient date
Shall be opened, whereon wait
Mighty iflues big with fate ;
3C DIES IRJE.
And each secret thing fhall lie
Thenceforth bare to every eye,
Nought unpunifhed or pafTed by.
Ah, me ! what fhall I then plead,
Who for me then intercede,
When the juft of help have need ?
Thou, who doft, O Heavenly King,
Free forgiveness freely bring.
Let me drink of Mercy's Spring !
Thou didft empty and exhauft
Heaven for me : when such the coft,
Jesus, let me not be loft!
Wearily Thou soughteft me,
Bought'ft me on th' accursed tree :
Let it not all fruitless be !
Righteous Judge, who wilt repay.
Grant me pardon, ere that day
Of decifion and dismay !
DIES IRJE. 31
I, a finful man and base,
Blufhing, groaning o'er my case,
Seek and supplicate Thy grace.
Thou, who heardeft Mary's fighs,
Thou, who openedft Paradise
To the Thief, regard my cries ! *
Worthless are my prayers and worse.
But, good Lord, be not adverse,
Left I fink beneath the curse !
Set me, when at Thy command
All mankind divided ftand.
With the fheep at Thy right hand !
When th' insufferable doom
Shall the reprobate consume.
With Thy chosen give me room !
In the solemn hour of death.
When the earthly vanifheth,
O, receive my parting breath !
r^
DIES IR^.
Ah ! that day made up of tears.
When from afhes reappears
Th' Adam of fix thousand years,—
Who, by its red glare and gleam,
Sees, as in an awful dream,
Juftice lift her trembling beam,—
Conscious on that hinge of fate
All things hang and hefitate :
Spare then. Lord, if not too late!
VIII.
THAT dreadful day, my soul !
Which the ages fliall unroll,
When the knell of Time fhall
toll !
O, the terror and the fhame,
When the Judge with eyes of flame
Shall make piercing search of blame !
Suddenly the Trumpet's fhock
Doors of Hades fhall unlock,
And before Him all fhall flock.
Struck with wonder and dismay.
Death and Nature fhall obey
Summons to give up their prey.
Loudly each indi6lment dread
Shall in every ear be read
Of the living and the dead.
5
34 DIES IRJE.
Every idle word and thought,
Every work in secret wrought,
Into Judgment fhall be brought.
Scarce the juft man's case is sure.
Scarce the heavens themselves are pure
Ah ! how then fhall I endure ?
Dreadful Potentate and high,
Who doft freely juftify,
Fount of Grace, my need supply!
Jefus, mind the kind intent
Of Thy weary banifhment.
And my ruin then prevent !
Let Thy paffion and Thy pain,
All Thou sufFeredft me to gain,
Be not barren and in vain !
Righteous Arbiter of fate !
Life and death upon Thee wait,
Pardon, ere it be too late !
DIES IKJE. 35
Spare me, vileft of the race,
Guilty, infamous and base,
Bluftiing mendicant of grace !
Though of fmners I be chief.
Hear me. Thou who heard'ft the Thief,
Driedft the fount of Mary's grief!
All my prayers are guilty breath,
And the beft nought meriteth :
But in mercy save from death !
When, disposed on either hand,
All mankind before Thee ftand,
Set me with Thy chosen band !
When, O, terrible to tell!
Yawns inevitable Hell,
With the bleffed bid me dwell!
When I reach the awful goal.
And Death's billows o'er me roll.
Care for my undying soul!
36
DIES IRJE.
Day of weeping and surprise,
Opening tombs and opening eyes,
Rocking earth and burning fkies !
Day of universal dread,
When the quick and quickened dead
Shall have solemn sentence said !
Then, O, then, vi^hen in despair,
Man fhall speak or fhriek the prayer,
*' Spare me ! " God of Mercy, spare !
IX.
AY foretold, that day of ire,
Burden erft of David's lyre.
When the world fhall fink in
fire!
O, what horror and amaze,
When at once on mortal gaze
All the Judge's pomp fhall blaze!
When the Trumpet's myftic blaft.
To the world's four corners caft.
Disentombs the buried Paft ;
And from, all the heaving sod,
From each foot of trampled clod,
Starts a multitude to God ;
And that Volume is unrolled
Wherein are minutely told
Ail men's doings from of old ;
38 DIES IRJE.
While, from what is there contained.
Shall be judged a world arraigned,
And eternal fates ordained :
What defence can I then make,
To what Patron me betake,
When the righteous fear and quake ?
King, who doft all power pofTess,
Free Thy grace and limitless,
Save me. Fount of Blefledness !
Jefus, Mafter, Thou doft know
I Thy miffion caused below.
All Thy weariness and woe !
Let Thy blood, that drenched the hilt
Of that sword unfheathed for guilt,
Be not vainly fhed and spilt !
O my Judge, forgive, forget !
Cancel my tremendous debt.
Ere the sun of grace fhall set !
DIES IRJE. 29
Filled with fhame I hang my head,
Blufhes deep my face o'erspread :
Stay Thy lightnings fierce and red !
Thou canft darkeft ftains efface ;
Haft made monuments of grace
Of the vileft of the race.
My poor prayers please not repel !
Grace and goodness with Thee dwell :
Snatch me from the flames of Hell !
When Thou (halt discriminate,
Sheep from goats fhalt separate.
Let me on Thy right hand wait !
When Thy sentence, smiting dumb,
Down to Hell fhall banifh some,
With the blefled bid me come !
To Thy care, O Kind as Juft !
Heart all penitential duft,
I my end commit and truft !
40
DIES IR^.
Floods of tears that day ftiall pour ;
Man fhall wake to fleep no more ;
Guilty, horribly afraid :
Spare him, Lord, whom Thou haft made !
X.
O ! it comes, with ftealthy feet,
Day, the ages fhall complete,
When the world fhall melt with
heat!
O, what trembling fhall there be.
When all eyes the Judge fhall see.
Come to fift iniquity !
Trump fhall syllable command.
And the dead of sea and land
All before the Throne fhall fland.
Death fhall fhudder. Nature too.
When the creature lives anew.
Called to render answer true.
Volume, that omitteth nought
Man e'er said or did or thought,
Shall for sentence then be brought.
6
4-2 DIES IR^.
When fhall fit the Judge severe,
All that's dark {hall be made clear.
Nothing unavenged appear.
What, alas! fhall I then say,
To what Interceflbr pray.
When the juft fhrink with dismay?
Awful King, fince all is free.
Without merit, without fee.
Fount of Mercy, save Thou me !
Mind, O Jesus, Friend fincere.
How I caused Thy advent here,
Nor me lose who coft so dear !
Straying, I by Thee was sought,
On the cross with blood was bought
Let it not be all for nought !
Righteous Judge ! Avenging Lord !
Full remiflion me afford.
Ere that final day's award I
DIES IKJE. 43
Groan I, like a culprit base,
Conscious guilt inflames my face ;
Spare the suppliant, God of Grace I
Thou, who erft didft Mary clear,
And the dying Thief didft hear,
Hope haft given me to cheer.
Though my prayers create no claim.
Be propitious. Lord, the same.
Left I burn in endless flame!
Place among Thy ftieep provide.
From the goats me sunder wide.
Standing safe at Thy right fide !
While " Depart ! " to foes addrefl'ed
Baniftieth to woes unguefled.
Call me near Thee with the blefl'ed!
Contrite pangs my bosom tear.
Heart as afties : hear my prayer,
Let my end be not despair!
44
DIES IR^.
On that day of grief and dread,
When man, rifing from the dead,
Shall eternal juftice face.
Spare the fmner, God of Grace .
XI.
AY of wrath, that day of dole,
When a fire (hall wrap the whole.
And the earth be burnt to coal !
O, what horror, smiting dumb
When the Judge of all fhall come,
Sinful deeds to search and sum!
Trump's reverberating roar
Through the sepulchres fhall pour,
Citing all the Throne before.
Death and Nature fland aghaft.
While the dead in numbers vaft
Rise to answer for the paft.
Volume, writ by God's own pen.
Chronicling the deeds of men,
Shall be brought, and dooms be then.
46 DIES IRJE.
When the Judge (hall sit, behold !
What is secret He'll unfold,
No juft punifhment withhold.
Ah ! what plea fliall I prepare.
To what Patron make my prayer,
When the juft well-nigh despair ?
King, majeftic beyond thought.
Whose free grace cannot be bought.
Save me, whose desert is nought!
O, remember, Jefus, I
Was the cause and reason why
Thou didft come on earth to die I
Me Thou sought'ft with weary feet,
And my ransom didft complete :
Let such pity nought defeat !
Judge, inflexible and ftridt.
Pardon, ere that day convi6l
And th* unchanging doom infli£l !
DIES IR^. 47
Like a criminal I sigh,
Bluftiing, penitently cry :
Pass, Lord, my offences by !
Thou, who Mary erft did'ft bless,
Heard'ft the Thief in his diftress,
Hope haft given me no less.
Worthless are my prayers and vain,
But in love do not disdain.
Left I reap eternal pain !
On Thy right hand grant me place
*Mid the flieep, a chosen race, —
Far from goats devoid of grace!
When the thunder of Thine ire
Headlong hurls to quenchless fire,
Let Thy welcome me inspire !
I entreat Thee, bending low.
Heart as afhes, full of woe.
Succor in my end beftow I
48
DIES IR^.
When upon that day of tears
Man from duft again appears,
Fate depending on Thy nod :
Spare the finner then, O God !
XII.
DAY of wrath ! O day of fate!
Day foreordained and ultimate,
When all things here fhall termi-
nate !
What numbers horribly afraid,
When comes the Judge, in fear arrayed,
To try the creatures He hath made!
The blare of Trumpet, pealing clear.
Shall through the sepulchres career.
And wake the dead, and bring them near.
Aftoniflied Nature then ftiall quail,
What time the yawning graves unveil,
And man comes forth, amazed and pale.
To answer : The o'erwritten scroll
Shall charge and certify the whole,
Whence Ihall be judged each human soul.
7
50 DIES IR^..
The Judge enthroned fhall bring to light
Whate'er is hid, in open fight
Avenge and vindicate the right.
Ah ! with what plea fhall I then come,
-When, terror-locked, each sense is numb,
And even righteous lips are dumb ?
O King immortal and supreme,
Whose fear is great, whose grace extreme.
Make me to drink of Mercy's ftream !
Remember, Jefus, Thou didft make
Thyself incarnate for my sake.
Left Hell insatiate claim and take !
Thou soughteft me when far aftray,
Didft on the cross my ransom pay :
Let not such love be thrown away !
Juft Judge, of purity intense,
Remit my infinite offence.
Before that day of recompense !
DIES IR^. 51
Like one convinced of heinous deed,
I groan, I weep, I blufli, I plead :
Lord, spare me in that hour of need !
Thou, who wert moved by Mary's tears,
Absolved the Robber from his fears,
Haft given me hope in former years.
My prayers are worthless well I know ;
But, good, do Thou Thy goodness (how,
And save me from impending woe !
Number and place me 'mong Thy own.
Beneath the fhelter of Thy Throne,
Until Thy wrath be overblown!
When that the almighty word fhall leap
From out Thy Throne, Thy foes to sweep,
My soul in perfecSl safety keep !
In proftrate worfhip, I implore.
With heart all penitent and sore :
Then care for me when life is o'er !
52
DIES IR^.
Ah ! on that day of grief and dread,
And resurre6lion of the dead,
Of trial and of juft award,
In wrath remember mercy, Lord !
XIII,
HAT day, that awful day, the laft,
Result and sum of all the Paft,
Great neceflary day of doom.
When wrecking fires fhall all con-
sume !
What dreadful fhrieks the air fhall rend,
When all fhall see the Judge descend.
And hear th' Archangel's echoing fhout
From heavenly spaces ringing out !
The Trump of God with quickening breath
Shall pierce the filent realms of Death,
And sound the summons in each ear :
" Arise ! thy Maker calls ! Appear ! "
From eaft to wefl, from south to north.
The earth fhall travail and bring forth ;
54 DIES IRJE.
As desert's sands and ocean's waves
Shall be the sum of empty graves.
Th' unchanging Reco/J of the Paft
Shall then be read from firfl: to laft ;
And out of things therein contained.
Shall all be judged and fates ordained.
No lying tongue, that truth diilorts,
Shall witness in that Court of Courts ,
Each secret thing fliall be revealed,
And every righteous sentence sealed.
Ah! who can Itand when He appears?
Confront the guilt of finful years ?
What hope for me, a wretch depraved,
When scarce the righteous man is saved ?
Dread Monarch of the Earth and Heaven?
For that salvation's great 'tis given ;
And fince the boon is wholly free,
() Fount of Pity, save Thou me !
DIES IRJE. ,55
Remember, Jefus, how my case
Once moved Thy pity and Thy grace,
And brought Thee down on earth to flay :
O, lose me not, then, on that day!
I seek Thee, who didft seek me firft.
Weary and hungry and athirft ;
Didft pay my ransom on the tree :
Let not such travail fruftrate be !
Juft Judge of vengeance in the end,
Now in the accepted time befriend !
My fins, O, gracioufly remit.
Ere Thou judicially fhalt fit!
Low at Thy feet I groaning lie ;
With bluftiing cheek, and weeping eye.
And ftammering lips, I urge the prayer :
O spare me, God of Mercy, spare !
When Mary Thy forgiveness sought,
Wept, but articulated nought,
56 DIES IRJE.
Thou didft forgive ; didfl: hear the brief
Petition of the dying Thief.
On grace thus great my hope is built
That Thou wilt cancel, too, my guilt ;
That, though my prayers are worthless breath,
Thou wilt deliver me from death.
When Thy dividing rod of might
Appointeth ftations oppofite,
Among Thy ftieep grant me to ftand.
Far from the goats, at Thy right hand !
And when despair fhall seize each heart
That hears the dreadful sound, "Depart!"
Be mine, the heavenly lot of some.
To hea-r that word of welcome, " Come ! **
I come to Thee with trembling truft,
And lay my forehead in the duft ;
In my laft hour do Thou befriend.
And glorify Thee in my end !
APPENDIX.— SEQUENCE.
i,v^v STATEMENT of the order observed
Q in the celebration of Mass will beft ex-
plain the nature and import of this term,
^^-^i in its application by the Romifh Church
to a large body of hymns, — Daniel, in the 5th vol-
ume of his learned and laborious work, " Thesaurus
Hymnologicus," citing no less than eight hundred,
the laft one given being a new Sequence, composed
in honor of the Virgin in 1855, " Sequentia de Beata
Maria Virgine fine Labe Concepta, Virgo Virginum
Praeclara."
The dispofition of parts in the Mass is as follows,
viz. : I. 1'he Introit, which is the part sung or
chanted when the prieft enters within the rails of the
altar. 2. The Collect, or Prayer. 3. Reading
OF THE Epistle, being, in the Mass for the Dead,
I Cor. XV. 51-57, or Rev. xiv. 13. 4. The Grad-
JAL, so called from its having been sung or chanted
58 SEQUENCE.
formerly from the fleps [gradus) of the altar, clofing
with the Alleluia. 5. The Tract, which is
omitted when the Alleluia is sung; otherwise it is
sung in the interval to prepare for the following.
The primary meaning of the word (from traho^ to
protract or draw out) is adapted to suggeft either the
use here indicated, i. e. to fill up time, or else to ex-
press the flow, mournful movement which chara£ler-
izes the chant. 6. The Sequence, being, in the
Mass for the Dead, the Dies Ir^. 7. Reading
OF THE Gospel, being, in the Mass for the Dead,
John V. 25-29. 8. The Offertory, which is a
fhort sentence that varies. 9. The Secret, a brief
prayer recited by the prieft in a very low tone of
voice. 10. Communion, or the application of the
Mass. II. Post-Communion.
The Sequence, it will be seen, occupies a pofition
exactly midway, being juft after the Gradual and
Tract, and immediately before the Gospel. The
Reading of the Gospel happening to be introduced by
the words, " Sequentia San6li Evangelii secundum
," (The Continuation of the Holy Gospel ac-
cording to ,) some have supposed that the term
Sequentia or Sequence was derived from this source.
Michael Prastorius was of this opinion. But the
SEQ^IKNCE. 5^
mod approved authorities give the following explana-
tion oi its origin.
From an early period, it was the cuftom of the
Latin Church to fing the Gradual with the Alleluia
between the Epiftle and the Gospel ; the Gradual
being completed, the Alleluia followed ; and in order
to give to the officiating prieft or deacon sufficient
time to prepare and ascend the ambon or pulpit, the
choir repeated and continued the laft syllable A
through a series of notes. This neuma^ as it was
called, or mufical prolongation of a letter, was named
Sequentia, because it was sequent to and governed
by the melody and rhythm of the Alleluia. At a
later period, this paflage of notes sung without text,
conftituting the original form of the Sequence, came
to have words set thereto, thereby preparing the
way for other changes ; and forasmuch as the firft
eflays of this kind were unmetrical in their ftruilure,
the term Prosa or Prose was applied by way of dis-
tinction to this species of compofition ; of which
Notker, surnamed the Stammerer, (Balbulus,) who
died in 912, canonized in 1 5 14, is confidered to have
been the originator. Gradually, rhyme, so much
and so fondly cultivated in the Middle Ages, found
"ts way into these also ; and from the twelfth century
60 SEqiJENCE.
onward, Sequences became proper metrical songs,
differing from other hymns only in this, that the
ftrophes, inftead of four, were made to consist of
three or fix lines, according as they were double
or fmgle. To this rule, however, there were some
exceptions. The name of Prose, although not
ftrictly proper in its application to metrical composi-
tions, continued to be used, nevertheless, as a general
title for all Sequences ; and so we find the Dies Ira?
bearing the appellation in the Mass-books of " Prosa
Ecclefiaftica de Mortuis."
Defigned in the firft inftance, as alleged by Notlcer,
merely to aflift the memory in retaining the long-
drawn, caudal melodies of the Alleluia, the defirable-
ness of having other songs for the Mass than the
Gloria in Excelfis, Kyrie, Credo, &c., songs eafiei
in ftrudture, which could be joined in, not only by
the choir, but also by the congregation, — perhaps,
too, the wifli to introduce greater variety into the
service, and bring the fmging into closer relation
with the objects of particular Church fellivals, which
could be done more readily by these Sequences, —
caused them to be multiplied greatly.
But the Roman ritual finally limited them to four,
viz. : VictimcE paschali laudis^ S, for Eafler Sunday j
SEQUENCE.
6i
Ven'i Sancte Spiritus^ S. for Whitsunday and St,
Peter's Dav \ Lauda Sion Sahatorem^ S. for Solem-
nity of Corpus Chrifti ; and Z)/>^ /r^, S. Mass for
the Dead and All-Souls' Day ; nevertheless, other
Mass-books of diocefes and monaftic orders con-
tain more Sequences. The Sequence firft named
has a different metre from the other three, being one
of those rare cafes in which the chara61:eriflic triplet
form of the flrophe is departed from. The second
named, Veni Sanile Spiritus, which Trench speaks
of as " the loveliefl, though not the grandeft, of
all the hymns in the whole circle of Latin sacred
poetry," contains ten ftrophes of three lines each.
Its author was Robert the Second, son of Hugh
Capet, who ascended the throne of France in the
year 997, and died in 103 1. Like Henry the Sixth
of England, of a meek and gentle dispofition, a lov-
er of peace, he was ill suited to contend with the
turbulent and reftless spirits who surrounded him,
whose delight was in war. The next Sequence has
twelve double flrophes of fix lines each. It is com-
monly attributed to the so-called Angelical Doctor,
St. Thomas Aquinas. The laft, which is the Dies
Ir^, grand and unapproachable in its excellence,
comprises seventeen ftrophes of three lines each, and
one of four lines.
ORIGIN OF LATIN RHYME.
HILE it is true that the Latin hymns
written during the firft centuries of the
Chriftian era are, speaking generally,
chara£lerized by the absence of rhyme,
and that the prevalence of rhyme belongs peculiarly
and almoft exclufively to the period intervening
between the pontificate of Gregory the Great and
that of Leo X., it would be a great error to suppose
that rhyme was then firft introduced, or that it was
borrowed, as some have surmised, from the Romance
or Gothic languages. If we look for its origin, we
(hall find preludings and anticipations of it in every
one of the Latin poets, not excepting the oldeft.
Examples of both middle and final rhyme occur in
all. In the Introdudlion to Trench's " Sacred Latin
ORIGIN OF LATIN RHYME. 63
Poetry," where this whole subject is ably discuiled,
we have a collation of many of these. Witness the
following. An ancient author, quoted by Cicero,
(Tusc. 1. I. c. 28,) pofTibly Ennius, has this • —
Coelum nitescere, arbores frondescere,
Vites laetific^ pampinis pubescere,
Rami baccarum ubertate incurvescere.
Of middle rhyme, we have in Ennius : —
Non cauponantes bellum, sed belligerantes ;
In Virgil : —
Limus ut hie durescit, et hsec ut cera liquescit ;
In Ovid: —
Quern mare carpentem, substrictaque crura gerentem ;
Where also is found this example of leonine pen-
tameter : —
Qusrebant flavos per nemus omne favos.
Of final rhyme, we have, in Virgil : —
Nee non Tarquinium ejeetum Porsenna jubebat
Aeeipere, ingentique urbem obsidione premebat v
Ailso :
Omnis campis difFugit arator,
Oinnis et agricola, et tuta latet aree viator :
54 ORIGIN OF LATIN RHYME.
In Horace : —
Non satis est pulcra esse poemata ; dulcia santo,
Et quocumque volant, animum auditoris agunto ;
Also . —
Multa recedentes adimunt. Ne forte seniles
Mandentur juveni partes, pueroque viriles.
Lucan abounds in examples. Even the Latin prose-
writers, it would seem, did not disdain now and then
to play at rhyme, by putting rhyming words in jux-
tapofition. Cicero has Jiorem et colorem ; Pliny, ve-
ram et mera?n ; Plautus, melle et felle ; and so others.
Rhyme being thus shown to have been a thing
known to the language from the earlieft times, it
may be thought surprifing, that what at a later
period was so highly prized, and so fondly and so
laboriously cultivated, should have been, during so
many centuries, to such an extent, negle6ted ; having
been apparently fhunned rather than sought for, par-
ticularly by those great mafters of poetry who illus-
trated the Auguftan age. The fadt is, that the
ancient claffic metres, though found occafionally, as
we have seen, toying with rhyme, never seriously
ORIGIN OF LATIN RHYME.
65
afFecSled it ; and it was not until the fhackles imposed
by these had been wholly fhaken off, and a fimpler
and more natural verfification, based upon accent
inftead of quantity, had succeeded in eftablifhing its
juft claims over the Greek intruder, that the regime
of rhyme fairly commenced.
®itprian (![Itanf.
From the " Graduale Romanum."
^g^^^iii^^i
^^m^^m
T'
1. Di - 63 i - rae, di - es il - la Sol - vet s!B-clum
2. Quantus tre-mor est fu - tu-rus, Quan-do Ju-dex
7. Quod sum mi - ser tunc die - tu - rus, Quem pa - tro-nam
8. Hex tre-men-dse ma • jes - ta - tis, Qui sal - vau-do3
13. Qui Ma - ri - am ab - sol - vis - ti, Et la - tro-nem
14. Piffi-ces me-se non sunt dig-nae, Sed tu bo-nus
^^^^g^P^^
^^f^f^^^
in ta - vil - 'S.. Tes - te Da- vid cum Si - byl-la. 3. Tu-ba mi-rum
est ven- tu-rus, Cuncta stric-te dis- cus- su-rus. 4. Mors stu-pe-bit
ro- ga- tu-rus. Cum vix Justus sit se-cu-rus? 9. Re -cor- da- re
sal-vas gra-tis, Sal-va rae, f on s pi - e-ta-tis! 10. Quaerens me se •
ex- au- dis- ti. Mi - hi quo-que spem de-dis-ti. 15. In - ter o - ves
fac be-nig-ne, Ne per-en-ni cre-mer ig-ne. 16. Con-fu - ta- tis
spargens so-num Per se-pul-chra re - gi - o - num, Co- get om-nes
et na - tu - ra. Cum re - sur-get ore - a - tu - ra, Ju-di-can-ti
Je - su pi - e. Quod sum cau-sa tu - eb vi - se, Ne me per-das
dis - ti las - sus, He - de - mis- ti cru-cem pas-sus : Tan-tu5 la - bor
lo-cum pras-sta. Kt ab h '-dis me se-questra, Sit» ti' e"* 'n
ma- le - die • tis, Flammis a - cri - bus ad -die- tis, '^ -*» •,- dmta
an - te thronum. 5. Li - ber scriptus pro-fe - re - tur, In quo totiun
re-spon-su - ra. 6. Ju - dex er - go cum se- <ie - bit, Qui.lquid latet
jl - la di-e! ll.Ju8-te Ju -dex m - ti - o - nis, Donum fac re -
not sit cassus! 12. In ge - mis-co tanquam re - us, Cul-pa ru-bet
be'- ne ^dfc-tt i '''• ^ ' ""^ 8"P-Plex et ac - cli - nis, Cor contritum
con-ti - ne-tur, Uu-de mundus ju- di - ce-tur
ap - pa - re - bit, Nil in - ul - turn re - ma- - ne- bit.
" vnVf nl ' °-"'^ ^n-te diem ra-ti - o - nis. 18. La-chry-mo-sa
vul-tus me-us: Suppli-can-ti par-ce, De - us !
qua- si ci - nis : Ge- re cu-ram me - i fi - nis !
'Jt A
fe^^
di-es il - la Qua re - sur-get ex fa-vil-la, Ju-di-can-d
ho - mo re - us : Hu - ic er - go par - ce, De - ug '
DIES IR^ PARODIED.
JLLIAM HENRY NASSAU, Prince
of Orange — son of William II., Prince
of Orange, by the Princefs Mary, eldeft
daughter of Charles I. — was called to
the throne of England in 1689, '" conjun6lion with
his wife, Mary, eldeft daughter of the deposed James
II., James having fled to France, and with his family
become penfioners of Louis XIV., who in 1692 made
a vigorous attempt to efFe6l his reftoration. A treaty
formed in 1699, providing for the settlement of the
succeffion to the throne of the Spanifh empire on
the extin6lion of the eldeft branch of the house of
Auftria, was violated by Louis XIV. in accepting
the Spanifti throne for his grandson, the Duke of
Anjou, who thus became Philip V. of Spain. In
■addition to this, on the death of James II. he gave a
70 DIES IR^ PARODIED.
further affront by acknowledging his son James king
of Great Britain and Ireland.
From the union of the French and Spanifh crowns
in the Bourbon family, and the anticipated reftora-
tion of James II. and his son, the Pretender, to the
throne of England, a certain Catholic prieft, it would
seem, thought himself warranted in predicting the
speedy downfall of Proteftant Holland, the conver-
fion of England, and the overthrow of Lutheranism
and Calvinism throughout Europe — not scrupling
with profane audacity to travefty the celebrated Latin
Judgment Hymn, the Dies Irae, in the ventilation
of his malignant vaticinations. The following
*' Nenia Batavorum " or Dutchman's Ditty, is fur-
niftied by the great scholar Leibnitz, written, it is
said, in the year 1700.
The fkill and dexterity fhown by the parodift in
his manipulation of the original text are undeniable ;
but whatever may be thought of him as a poet, sub-
sequent events have made it certain that he was no
prophet ; while the licentious irreverence amounting
to blasphemy, which leads him to put the " Grand
Monarque " in the place of Chrift the Judge, is
DIES IRJE PARODIED. 71
quite {hocking to all right feeling and good talte.
Still, as one of the Curiofities of Literature, it pos-
sefTes much intereft. It is for this reason, and be-
cause it poffefles a hiftorical value, that we give it
here.
Dies ira;, dies ilia,
Solvet foedus* in favilla.
Teste Tago, Scaldi, Scyila.
That day of wrath, how it (hail burn
And fliall the league to afhes turn.
From Tagus, Scheldt, and Scyila learn.
Quantus tremor eft futurus
Dum Phillippus eft venturus
Has Paludes aggrefTurus !
What trembling multitudes afraid,
^^'hile Philip fhall the land invade,
And through the marfhes march and wade !
Tuba mirum spargens sonum
Per unita regionum
Coger omnes ante thronum.
* The league between England and Holland.
2 DIES IRJE PARODIED.
The blare ot trumpet making known
Through the united countries blown
Shall bring them all before the throne.
Mars ftupebit et Bellona
Dum rex dicit : Redde bona
Poft hoc vives sub corona.
Mars and Bellona dumb (hall ftand
What time the king fhall give command
"Yield to my sceptre, self and land."
Miles scriptus adducetur,
Cum quo Gallus unietur
Unde leo subjugetur.
His levied hofls he forth {hall call,
And joined to these fhall be the Gaul
Therewith the lion to enthrall.
Hie Rex ergo cum sedebit,
Vera fides refulgebit,
Nil Calvino remanebit.
Then when this King (hall fit and reign,
Lo ! the true faith fliall fhine again,
And nought to Calvin fhall remain.
DIES IRJE PARODIED.
Quid sum miser tunc cli6turus,
Quem patronum rogaturus,
Cum nee Anglus fit securusi'
What (hall I say forlorn and poor,
What Patron sue then or procure,
When not the Englishman 's secure ?
Rex invi6ta2 pietatis I
Depreffifti noflros* satis,
Si cadendum, cedo fatis.
King of unconquered piety !
Vexed haft thou ours sufficiently j
FaHing, I yield to deftiny.
Pofthoc colam Romam, pie,
Efle nolo causa viae,
Ne me perdas ilia die.
Henceforth at Rome my vows I 'II pay,
Will not be cause more of the way,
Left thou deftroy me on that day.
* Huguenots of France.
73
74 DIES IRJE PARODIED.
Pro Leone multa paffus,
Ut hie ftaret* eras laflus
Tantus labor non fit caffus.
Thou for the Lion much haft borne,
That he might ftand haft been much worn,
Let not such toil of fruit be fhorn !
Magne Rector liliorum,t
Amor, timor populorum,
Parce terris Batavorum.
Great Ruler of the lilies, hear !
The people's love, the people's fear.
Spare thou the Dutchmen's lands and gear!
Ingemisco tanquam reus,
Culpa rubet vultus meus —
Cadam, nifi juvat Deus.
Like one condemned, I make my plaint.
Remembered faults my visage paint —
Uniefs God aid, I '11 fall and faint.
* Formerly when France aided the Dutch.
+ In allufion to fleur-de-lis, or the lilies quartered in the royal
arms of France.
DIES IRiE PARODIED. 75
Dum Iberim domuifti,
Lufitaiium erexifti,
Mihi quoque spem dedifti.
For that while thou haft conquered Spain,
Haft Portugal upraised again,
I too some hope may entertain.
Preces meae non sunt dignae,
Sed, Rex Magne, fac benigne,
Ne bomborum cremur igne.
My worthlefs prayers no favor earn.
But be. Great King, benign, not ftern,
Left that by blazing bombs I burn !
Inter tuos locum praefta,
Ut Romana colam fefta,
Et ut tua canam gefta.
Among thy own me reinftate.
That I Rome's feafts may venerate,
And thy achievements celebrate !
76 DIES IRJE PARODIED.
Confutatis calvi brutis,*
Patre,t nato, reftitutis
Redde mihi spem salutis.
When quelled the Bald-head's ftupid horde,
The father and the son reftored,
Then hope of safety me afford !
Oro supplex et acclinis
Calvinismus fiat cinis,
Lachrymarum ut fit finis.
Do thou, I humbly supplicate,
All Calvinism extirpate,
That so our tears may terminate.
* William, Prince of Orange, who was bald.
+ James II. and his son, the Pretender
■■ 6tanat Mater Dolorosa
Juxta Crucem Lachry mosa. '
(PAUL DELAROCHE.)
Mni mntn
(DOLOROSA)
HYMN OF 7'HE SORROWS OF MARY
TRANSLATED BY
\y
ABRAHAM COLES, M. D., Ph. D.
THIRD EDITION.
N E W YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1891
PROEM.
HE celebrated Paffion Hymn, the Stabat
Mater, is so conftantly aflbciated with
the Dies Irse that to mention the one is
to suggeft the other. It has been thought,
therefore, that a Tranflation of this Prosa liicewise,
made as literal as poffible, might be acceptable to
some readers, and form a not unsuitable appendage
to the former volume, by supplying a ready means
of comparison between two productions, about which,
down to this day even, there has been a difference
of opinion as to which should be awarded the palm
of superiority.
It is hardly necelTary to say that reference is here
had to their lyrical merits only ; for while the devout
Proteftant finds nothing in the Judgment Hymn to
jar with his own religious convi6lions, he is neces-
sarily offended in the Stabat Mater by a devotion he
4 PROEM.
believes misdire6led and idolatrous, in the adoration
which it pays to the Virgin. He is aware, however,
that in the formation of a critical eftiniate of the two,
theological confiderations have no right to enter ;
and certainly the moft zealous Romanill will be con-
ftrained to admit that there has been no backward-
ness evinced on the part of those who are not of his
faith to do ample juftice to the lyric excellence of
the latter. Some have gone so far as to place it
above its great rival, but this is not the general judg-
ment, nor is it ours.
Beautiful it undoubtedly is, and powerful in its
pathos beyond almoft anything that has ever been
written ; but it is nevertheless true (and the same
indeed may be said of the Dies Irae likewise) that it
owes much of its power to make us admire and weep
to the transcendent nature of its theme. Beyond
controversy, the moft affe£ling spectacle ever ex-
hibited to the gaze of the universe, was that wit-
nefTed on Mount Calvary. That amazing scene —
Jesus on the cross and his mother ftanding near —
had been, of course, a familiar obje61: of contempla-
tion to all Chriftian hearts, centuries before the
PROEM. 5
author wrote. His chief bufmess therefore would
be not to originate but reproduce.
Evidently the key-note of the Hymn is ftruck in
the two firft lines, of which the language is wholly
borrowed (bating the epithets, which are not in the
manner of the sacred writers) from the Evangeliit
John, as found in the Latin verfion : Stabat juxta
crucem mater ejus. This brief but wonderfully sug-
geftive sentence, furnifhes an outline which the
pooreft imagination would be capable of filling up
in a degree. Every mother's heart, for example,
would suffice to tell what an abyss of tears muft
have gone to make up that hiatus in the narrative,
which leaves solely to inference what were the feel-
ings of her, who, without comprehending the mys-
tery, flood there gazing upward on the agonized face
and writhing form of her divine Son, through the
long hours of mortal anguifh during which he hung
upon the cross.
But however spontaneous and natural, — however
true, beautiful, and even poetic, — and however vivid
the emotions of sorrow, terror, and pity, arifing out
of these inftinctive and uninltrudled perceptions,
PROEM.
there is a vagueness as well as vividness, and a re-
sulting incapacity to express clearly and adequately
what is so genuinely felt. The ability to do this is
rare, and rarer ftill the poetic faculty, whereby the
unwritten melody of the heart is accommodated to
all lips and sung in all ears. To say that the author
of the Stabat Mater pofTefled this power and achieved
this triumph is to beftow upon him and his work
the higheft praise.
Rude though he be, and a ftammerer of barbarous
Latin, he gives undeniable evidence of being a true
poet. He has clairvoyance and second fight. The
diftant and the paft are made to him a virtual here
and now. He is in Italy, but he is also in Judea.
He lives in the thirteenth century, but is an eye-
witness of the crucifixion in the beginning of the
firft. He has immediate vifion. All that is tran-
spiring on Golgotha is diftinilly pi6lured on the retina
of his mind's eye. And by the light which is in
him he photographs what he sees for the use of
others. His ecce ! is no pointless indication, but an
actual fliowing. The wail he utters is a veritable
echo of that which goes up from the cross. Every-
thing; is true to nature and to life.
PROEM. 7
The Hymn confifts of two parts. The firft four
verses give a description of the fituation and charac-
ter of the a6lors in the drama, as pi6lorially powerful
as scripturally juft. From this fruitful source have
come all the Mater Dolorosas of the Painters. It
is alTumed, in accordance with the belief of the
Fathers, that the prophecy of Simeon : " A sword
(hall pass through thy own soul also," had then its
proper fulfilment. In the remaining fix verses, the
writer henceforth diflatisfied with the role of a spec-
tator, seeks to identify himself with the tragic scene ;
prays that he may be permitted to bear a part, not
in the way of sympathy merely, but of suffering also,
and this too, the same both in kind and degree ; that,
enduring ftripe for flripe, wound for wound, there
might be to him in every flage of the Redeemer's
paffion, groan answering to groan. •
It is now that the Franciscan appears quite as
much as the Chriftian. Even when, as in the 8th
verse, he quotes St. Paul (who speaks of " bearing
about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus"), he
is evidently thinking of St. Francis. He would fain
have repeated the miracle of the '* Stigmata" in his
8 PROEM.
own person, — have an a6lual and vifible reproduc-
tion of the print of the nails and the spear in his own
hands and feet and fide. As " plagas " in the laft
line of the same verse is used not unfrequently in the
sense, not so much of wounds as the marks and ap-
pearances left by wounds, it would correspond very
exactly with the ftigmata named in the legend, and
moft likely, in the author's use of it, it was intended
as a synonym. The poffibility of such a literalness,
however incredible to us, would not be so to him.
This Hymn is full of the implied merit of suffering,
— its meritoriousness in itself. And this is probably
one of the reasons why it became such a favorite
with the Flagellants, otherwise called Brethren of
the Cross (Crucifrates) and Cross-Bearers (Cruciferi),
penitents who, in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and
fifteenth centuries went about in proceflion day and
night, travelling everywhere, naked to the waist,
with heads covered with a white cap or hood, whence
they received likewise the appellation of Dealbatores,
finging penitential psalms, and whipping themselves
until the blood flowed. By their means it was that
the knowledge of this Hymn was firft carried to
almoft every country in Europe.
PROEM.
The authorfhip of the Stabat Mater, like that of
the Dies Irze, has been the suhje6l of dispute. It
has been varioufly ascribed — to Pope Innocent III.,
but backed by no evidence whatever ; to one of the
GregorieSj (either the 9th, loth, or nth, which, is
not ftated,) on the authority of the old Florentine
hiftorian Antoninus, who lived in the fifteenth cen-
tury ; to John XXII., on the faith of the Genoese
Chancellor and hifborian, Georgius Stella, who wrote
a few years earlier than the lall named, dying in
1420. The text, as supplied by him, the oldeft
perhaps extant, differs but little from that of the
Miffale Romanum, except that it contains three more
verses. Others have referred its paternity, contrary
to all probability, to St. Bernard. Dismiffing all these
as conje6lures unsupported by proof, it is now gen-
erally conceded, that evidence both external and in-
ternal makes it wellnigh certain that the Hymn was
the work of a Franciscan friar, a junior contemporary
as well as brother of the author of Dies Irae, named
Jacobus de Benedi6lis, commonly called Jacopone,
that is, the great Jacob. This latter name, it seems,
ivas originally defigned as a kind of nickname ; the
10 PROEM.
syllabic suffix, one^ meanmg in Italian great, having
been added by scoffing contemporaries by way of de-
jifion, on account of the ftrangeness of his appearance
and behavior. Indeed, if we may credit the ftories
told by Wadding, the Irifh hiftorian of the order,
himself one of the number, his condu6l at times
so far exceeded the bounds of ordinary fanatical ex-
travagance, as to be totally irreconcilable with the
pofleffion of right reason. Wadding expreffly says
that he was subject to fits of insanity, leading him at
one time to enter the public market-place naked,
with a saddle on his back and a bridle in his mouth,
going on all fours ; and at another, after anointing
himself with oil, and rolling himself '\\\ feathers of
various colors, to make his appearance suddenly, in
this unseemly and hideous guise, in the midft of a
gay affembly gathered together at the house of his
brother on the occafion of his daughter's marriage, —
and this too, in disregard of previous precautionary
entreaties of friends, who, apprehenfive, it seems, at
the time they invited him that he might be guilty of
some crazy manifeftation or other, had begged him
not to do anything to difturb the wedding feftivities,
but to behave as an ordinary citizen.
PROEM. II
The {hocking circumftances under which he loft
a pious and beloved wife (the fall of a scaffold upon
which a large number of females were seated wit-
nefling some speilacle), and the discovery after death
that fhe wore a girdle of hair around her naked body
as a means of mortification to the flefh, afFe6led him,
it is said, to such a degree, that he immediately re-
solved to abandon the world, and devote the remainder
of his days to the severeft penances. He accordingly
gave up all his civil honors, and divided his eftate
among the poor. Uniting himself to one of the
exifting orders, he now went abroad as a monk,
clothed in rags, and pra6liring all manner of ascetic
severities beyond what was required of him by the
rules of his order.
It is charitable to suppose that the fhock of his
domeftic calamity, while it awakened his religious
senfibilities, had the efFe6l at the same time of un-
settling his reason, caufing partial insanity. It is in
no wise inconfiftent with this suppofition, that he was
able to write poems of such excellence as the Stabat
Mater, and that other one ascribed to him by Wad-
ding : " Cur mundus militat sub vana gloria," &c..
12 PROHM.
Ciice it is weil Iciiown that mental unsoundness on
some one point is not neceffarily incompatible with the
normal exercise of the general powers of the mind.
This medical fa6l was not so well underftood in his
time as now ; and when at the end of ten years he
defired to be received by the Minorites, and thev
hefitated on account of his reputed insanity, their
scruples were overcome by reading his work *' On
Contempt of the World," conceiving that it was
impoflible that an insane man could write so excellent
a book. This would seem to have been a prose w^ork,
written probably in his own Italian vernacular, and
therefore not to be confounded with the Hymn juft
referred to, which usually bears likewise the title
of " De Contemptu Mundi."
As a Minorite he was not willino- to become a
priefl:, only a lay-brother. Very severe againfl him-
self, he was, says Wadding, always full of defire to
imitate Christ and suffer for Him. In an ecftasy he
imagined at times that he faw Him with his bodily
eyes, and believed that Jesus often conversed with
him, — calling him deareft Jacob. Very frequently
he was seen fighing ; sometimes weeping, sometimes
PROEM. 13
Tinging, sometimes embracing trees, and exclaiming,
" O sweet Jesus ! O gracious Jesus ! O beloved
Jesus ' " Once when weeping loudly, on being afked
the cause, he answered : " Because Love is not
loved." This fine saying is not unworthy of the
author of the Stabat Mater.
For determining the genuineness of love he gives
these searching tefts. ^' I cannot know pofitively that
I love, yet I have some good marks of it. Among
others, it is a fign of love to God when I afk the
Lord for something and He does it not, and I love
Him notwithftandina more than before. If He does
o
contrary to that which I seek for in my prayer, and
I love him twofold more than before, it is a fign of
right love. Of love to my neighbor I have this fign :
namely, that when he injures me I love him not less
than before. Did I love him less, it would prove
that I had loved not him previoufly but myself." In
this acute appreciation of the figns and symptoms of
true love, he gives evidence certainly of no want of
fkill in spiritual diagnosis ; and were he equally sound
and discriminating in all parts of Chriflian doctrine
and experience as in this, it might have been quite
14 PROEM.
safe CO truft him with the cure of souls. It may be
that his tefts are too severe and superhuman, and so
far erroneous.
On the subjugation of the senses he allegorizes
in this wise : " A very beautiful virgin had five broth-
ers, and all were very poor. And the virgin had a
precious jewel of great worth. One brother was a
guitar-player, the second a painter, the third a cook,
the fourth a spice dealer, the fifth a pimp. Each
was willing to use blandifhments to get the ftone.
The firft was willing to play, and so on. But flie
said: What (hall 1 do when the mufic has ceased?
In fhort, (he remained firm, and gave the jewel to
none. At length a great king came, who was willing
to raise her to be his bride, and give her eternal life
if fhe would present him with the flone. Where-
upon file says : How can I, O my sovereign, to such
grace refuse the ftone ; and so (he gave it him." it
is plain that by the brothers are meant the Five
Senses ; by the virgin, the Soul ; and by the precious
jewel, the Will.
\'* ich his severe principles and severer ascetic life,
Jacopone could not fail to earneftly denounce the
PROEM. 15
roiruptioiis of his time in general, and especially the
licentious manners, wickedness, and debaucheries
of the priefthood, and the deeply sunken condition
of the Church. Boniface III., who, prior to his
elevation to the papal chair, had lived in friendly re-
lations with Jacopone, having been deeply offended
by some fharp censures directed againft him, threw
him into prison, — at the same time suspended over
him the excommunication. Boniface one day pall-
ing the cell where Jacopone was, afked scornful-
ly, "When will you come out?" He answered,
" When you come in." Boniface's own imprison-
ment and unhappy end in 1303 set him at liberty.
It is related likewise how he baffled Satanic craft
by superior craftiness of his own ; but the details of
these temptations are so childifh and ridiculous that
it Vv^ould not be profitable to quote. Doubtless it is
more fitting to weep than to laugh over the frenzies
and follies of such a man, —
" To see that noble and moft sovereign reason
Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harfh."
Hi*; whole hiflory gives a melancholy but inffruc-
tive iiiiight into the prevalent fanaticism and dark
l6 PROEM.
ness of the period. His death took place at an
advanced age in 1306. " He died," says Wadding,
"like the swan, Tinging, — having composed several
Hymns juft before his death."
The number of Tranfiations made of the Stabat
Mater is scarcely exceeded by that of the Dies Irae.
Lisco, in his work devoted to this Prosa, gives or
makes mention of eighty-three in all, complete and
incomplete. With the exception of four done in
Dutch, these are all German. A fimilar colledion
of Englifh verfions, although comparatively few in
number, would not be without intereft. In attempting
to add another to those already exifting, the present
Tranflator has been moved by a defire to produce
one more literal, if poflible, than any he has seen.
He is not, he confefles, friendly to free tranfiations.
Free, he has often observed, is another name for
false. A counterfeit is put in the place of the
genuine ; so that inftead of a Stabat we get only
some worthless subftitute. He honors that pains-
taking religious scrupulofity which respeils the sa-
credness of words as well as thoughts ; and fhuns
all sacrilegious license and profane handling, — carry-
PROEM. 17
ing this reverence for the venerated text so far as
to be unwilling, if it can poffibly be helped, to vary
one jot or tittle, either in the vv^ay of subfticution or
alteration.
He has no patience vi^ith that preposterous conceit,
sufficiently common, which imagines itself competent
to improve on great originals — whether fur that mat-
ter these be in a foreign tongue or the vernacular,
and so applies to all tamperings with Englifh hymns
as well. It is much, he confiders, as if some absurd
novice of the brufli fhould undertake with a pre-
sumptuous hand to retouch a Raphael ; or an irrev-
erent ftone-cutter, by the clumsy use of his chisel, to
improve a Venus de Medicis, or an Apollo Belvedere ;
or some ignorant devotee to make some fine ftatue
of the Virgin finer by puerile adornments of dress,
trinkets, and glass beads. If the use of means
adapted to degrade a mafterpiece to the level of an
image be accounted a fin and an outrage, it is diffi-
cult to see why the impertinences of the cheap em-
bellifhments of every would-be tranflator of famous
originals, who aspires to be fine rather than faithful,
(hould not be regarded as equally criminal. It may
2
l8 PROEM.
be, as Dryden says, " almojl impoflible to tranflate
verbally and well ; " but as the portrait of a friend is
worthless, however beautiful, unless it be a likeness,
so we hold a verfion muft fail of its purpose and be
wanting in value, juft so far as it is lacking in the
eflential point of being a faithful representation, both
as to form and spirit, of that to which it relates.
What is here said, is meant, of course, to apply only
to what is deliberately put forth as a veritable trans-
lation ; and not to a produ6lion which avowedly uses
the text merely as a theme, profefling and claiming
to do no more. In this case one may deviate as he
pleases. It is exclufively his own bufiness.
With these views of the duties of a tranflator, the
writer has aimed, however much he may have fallen
(hort, to make his rendering a word for word reflec-
tion of the original, so far at leaft as the rigorous
requirements of rhyme and rhythm would allow.
For the sake, too, of a closer rhythmic conformity,
he has sought even to preserve the mufical quad-
ruplications of the female rhymes found in the second
and fixth verses. The text adopted is that of the
Roman MifTal, except in one or two inftances where
another rcadini; has been preferred.
PROEM. 19
To make the resemblance between the two Hymns
ftill more complete, the Stabat Mater, like the Dies
Irae, has been moft fortunate in its mufical alliances ;
having been made the theme of some of the moft
celebrated compofitions of the moft eminent com-
posers. It was set to mufic in the fixteenth century
by the famous papal chapel mafter, Paleftrina ; and
his compofition is ftill annually performed in the
Siftine Chapel during Holy Week. It is sung like-
wise in connedlion with the feftival of the Seven
Sorrovv's of the Virgin, The compofition of Pergolefi,
the laft and moft celebrated of his works, made juft
before his death and left unfinifhed, has never, down
to the present day, been surpaffed, if equalled, in
the eftimation of critics. It is set for two voices,
with accompaniments.
Tieck, in his Phantasus, Vol. 2d, p. 438, (edition
of 18 12,) thus speaks of the compofition of Pergolefi
and the Hymn itself: " The loveliness of sorrow in
the depth of pain, the smiling in tears, the childlike-
ness, which touches on the higheft heaven, had to
me never before risen so bright in the soul. I had
to »'""n Away to conceal my tears, especially at the
20 PROEM.
place : ' Videt suum dulcem natum/ How fignificant,
that the Amen, after all is concluded, ftiil sounds
and plays in itself, and in tender emotion can find
no end, as if it were afraid to dry up the tears, and
would ftill fill itself with sobbings. The poetry itself
is tt)uching and profoundly penetrating ; surely the
poet sang those rhymes : *■ Qus moerebat, et dolebat
cum videbat,' with a moved mind.'' It is a tradition,
that the great impreflion which the Stabat Mater of
the young artift (Pergolefi) made on its firft perform-
ance, inflamed another mufician with such furious
envy, that he ftruck down the young man as he was
coming out of the church. This tradition has long
ago been disproved, but as Pergolefi died early, it
may, as one remarks, be permitted to the poet to
refer to this ftory, and allow him to fall as a vi6fim
of his art and inspiration. He was born 1704— ir
at Jefi, and died 1 737 at Torre del Greco, at the
foot of Mount Vesuvius, where he had retired on
account of his weakened health. The recent com-
position of Roflini is popular and pleafing, but more
operatic than ecclefiaflical, and so is better suited
to the concert-room than the church.
PROEM. 21
The names of other diftinguished composers might
be cited, such as Aftorga, Haydn, Bellini, and Neu-
komm. Aftorga's principal work was his Stabat
Mater, the MS. of which is ftill preserved at Oxford,
he having lived a year or two in England. He was
a native of Sicily, and died in 1755. Haydn's was
published in the year I 781.
We give below a condensed view of the various
readings taken from Lisco ; and as the Hymn is
usually divided into three-line Strophes, making in
all twenty, the references will be to these : —
Stiopiif I, lint 3. Duin — Qua.
2, " 2. Contiiftatam — Contriftantem.
4, " 2. Et tremebat — Pia mater — Dum videbat
et tremebat.
5, " 2. Chrifti matrem fi — Matrem Chrifti cum.
5, " 3. In tanto — tanto in.
6, " I. Quis non poffit — Quis non poteft — Quis
poffit non.
8, " I. Videns — Vidit.
8, " 2. Morientem — Moriendo.
Dum emifit — amifit.
Pia mater — Eja mater.
Ut fibi — Et fibi ; ut tibi ; ut ipfi ; fibi ut.
Valide — vivide.
Jam dignati — Tam dignati.
8, '
' 3
9. '
' I.
10, '
' 3-
II, " 3-
13, '
' 2,
22
PROEM.
Strophe 12,
line 3
13.
" I.
14.
" 2.
14.
" 3
15.
" 2
16,
" 2
16,
" 3
17.
" 2
17.
" 3
18,
" I
ne 3. Pcenas pro me — Pcenas mecum.
Fac me vere tecum — Fac me tecum pie.
Te libenter — Et me tibi — Tibi me con
sociare.
In planctu — Cum planctu.
Mihi jam — Mihi tam.
Suse sortem — Fac consortem.
Plagas recolere — Plagis te colere.
Cruce hac — Cruce fac me hac beari —
Cruce fac.
Ob amorem — Et cruore.
Infiammatus et accensus — Flammis urar
ne (ne urar) succensus.
20, " 3. Gloria — Gratia.
The Stabat Mater of Haydn has this for the
eighteenth Strophe : —
Flammis orci ne succendar
Per te, virgo, fac, defendar,
In die judicii.
The Carmelite Miflal gives for the nineteenth
Strophe the following : —
Chrifte, cum fit hinc exire
Da per matrem me venire
Ad palmam victorias.
The change made in some copies of the seven-
PROEM.
23
teenth Strophe, of the original " Cruce hac inebriari,"
into ** Cruce fac me hac beari," is fignificant of some
exception having been taken to the great flrength,
not to say the audacity, of the author's metaphor, —
the dr:w]fcnness of love.
SEQUENTIA DE SEPTEM DOLORIBU.'
BEATiE VIRGINIS.
T.
TABAT Mater dolorosa
Juxta crucem lachrymosa
Qija pendebat Filius ;
Cujus animani gementerrij
CoiUriftantem et doleiitem,
Pertranfivit gladius.
11.
O quam triftis et affli6la
Fuit ilia benedicSta
Mater Unigeniti !
Quae moerebat et dolebat
Et tremebat, cum videbat
Nati pcenas Inclyti.
HYMN OF THE SORROWS OF MARY.
TOOD th' affliaed Mother weeping,
Near the crofs her ftation keeping,
Whereon hung her Son and Lordj
Through whose spirit sympathizing,
Sorrowing and agonizing,
Also pafled the cruel sword.
II.
O how mournful and diftreffdd
Was that favored and moft blefled
Mother of the Only Son !
Trembling, grieving, bosom heaving.
While perceiving, scarce believing.
Pains of that Illuftrious One.
26 STAli r MATER.
III.
Quis eft homo, qui non fleret,
Matrem Chrifti fi videret
In tanto supplicio ?
Quis non poffet contriftari
Piam matrem contemplari
Dolentem cum Filio ?
IV.
Pro peccatis suae gentis
Vidit Jesum in tormentis
Et flagellis subditum }
Vidit suum dulcem natum
Morientem, desolatum,
Dum emifit spiritum.
V.
Pia Mater, fons anioris !
Me sentire vim doloris
Fac, ut tecum lugeam.
Fac, ut ardeat cor meum
In amando Chriftum Deum
Ut Sibi complaceam.
STABAT MATER. 2'
III.
Who the man, who, called a brother.
Would not weep, saw he Chrift's mother
In such deep diftrefs and wild ?
Who could not sad tribute render
Wjtnefling that mother tender
Agonizing with her Child ?
IV.
For His people's fins atoning
Him fhe saw in torments groaning.
Given to the scourger's rod ;
Saw her darling Offspring, dying
Desolate, forsaken, crying,
Yield His spirit up to God.
V.
Make me feel thy sorrow's power.
That with thee I tears may fhower.
Tender Mother, fount of love !
Make my heart with love unceafing
Burn towards Chrift the Lord, that pleafing
I may be to Him above.
28 STABAT MATER.
VI.
Sanda Mater, iftud agas.
Crucifix! fige plagas
Cordi meo valide,
Tui nati vulnerati,
Tarn dignati pro me pati
Poenas mecum divide,
VII.
Fac me tecum vere flere,
Crucifixo condolere,
Donee ego vixero.
Juxta crucem tecum ftare,
Te libenter sociare,
In plan£lu defidero.
VIII.
Virgo virginum prseclara,
Mihi tam non fis amara,
Fac me tecum plangere ;
Fac ut portem Chriili mortem,
Paflionis fac consortem,
Et plagas recolere.
stAbat mater. ^9
VI.
Holy iMother, this be granted,
That the Slain One's wounds be planted
P'irmly in my heart to bide.
Of Him wounded, all aftounded, —
Depths unbounded for me sounded, —
All the pangs with me divide.
VII.
Make me weep with thee in union ;
With the Crucified, communion
In His grief and suffering give :
Near the crofs with tears unfailing
I would join thee in thy wailing
Here as long as I fhall live.
vin.
Maid of maidens, all excelling,
Be not bitter, me repelling.
Make thou mc a mourner too ;
Make me bear about Chrift's dying.
Share His paflion, ftiame defying.
All His wounds in me renew :
30 STABAT MATER.
IX.
Fac me plagis vulnerari,
Cruce hac inebriari
Ob amorem Filii.
Inflammatus et accensus,
Per te, Virgo, fim defensus
In die Judicii.
X.
Fac me cruce cuftodiri,
Morte Chrifti praemuniri,
Confoveri gratia.
Qiiando corpus morietur,
Fac ut animae donetur
Paradifi gloria.
|E5I>
STABAT MATER.
31
IX.
Wound for wound be there created j
With the Crofs intoxicated
For thy Son's dear sake, I pray-
May I, fired with pure afFe6tion,
Virgin, have through thee protection
In the solemn Judgment Day,
Let me by the Crofs be warded.
By the death of Chrift be guarded,
Nourifhed by divine supplies.
When the body death hath riven.
Grant that to the soul be given
Glories bright of Paradise.
REMARKS.
(O admiration of the lyric excellence of
the Stabat Mater fhould be allowed to
blind the reader to those obje6lionable
features which muft always suffice, as
they have hitherto done, to exclude it from every
hymnarium of Proteftant Chriflendom. For not
only is Mary made the obje6l of religious worfhip,
but the incommunicable attributes of the Deity are
freely ascribed to her. Her agency is invoked as if
fhe were the third person of the Trinity, or had
powers coordinate and equal.
Plainly it is the province of the Holy Ghoft, and
not of any creature, to '' work in us to will and to
do ; " to efFe6l spiritual changes ; to " take of the
things of Chrill and fhow them unto us," — and yet
these are the very things which fhe herself is afked
to accomplifh for the suppliant. " Fac," alone, aiide
REMARKS. 33
from potential equivalents, is used at leaft nine times,
— a form of expreffion maniteftly inappropriate un-
lefs addrelTed to one capable of a6ts causal and orig-
inal and therefore divine. Not content, it seems,
with making her a fountain of supernatural influence,
a succedaneum of the Holy Ghoft, her efficiency
is extended to the performance likewise of the work
affigned to the Son, —
Per te, Virgo, fiin defensus
In die Judicii, —
an expreffion of reliance on her rather than on Him
to ward ofF'in that day the demands of divine juftice.
Mariolatry here culminates. It could not well be
carried farther.
Confidering that the pofition here given to the
mother of Chrift receives not a particle of counte-
nance anywhere in the New Teftament, one is led
to wonder how those who accepted its teachings
could ever have fallen into so awful an error. If
prayer of any kind addreffed to her were laudable or
lawful, how can it be explained that all the sacred
writers are so intensely reticent upon the point that
it is not poffible to find written so much as a fingle
34 REMARKS.
syllable to authorize it, or a solitary example to sanc-
tion it ? It is remarkable that Chrift, while here on
earth, did not hefitate to rebuke His mother on a
certain occafion when fhe manifefted a dispofition to
intrude her maternal human relation into the sphere
of His divinity, saying : " Woman, what have I to do
with thee?" At another time, upon being told that
His mother and His brethren ftood waiting without.
He said, *' Who is my mother ? and who are my
brethren ? " and ftretching forth His hand toward
His disciples, He said, '* Behold, my mother and my
brethren ? For whosoever {hall do the will of my
Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother
and fifter and mother."
Everybody muft feel that there is a sublime propri-
ety in this declarative poftponement, once for all, of
flefhly relationftiips to the spiritual ; and that it would
be infinitely unbecoming in Him, who is thS Creator
of all and the Judge of all, to be a respecter of per-
sons, swayed as men are swayed by the fond par-
tialities of blood and kindred. Upon this principle
it is easy to account for the flight mention made of
Chrift's mother in the Evangelifts, and the entire
REMARKS. 35
absence of any allufion to her in the reft of the New
Teftament. Even the Apoftle John, to whose lov-
ing care fhe was committed, and who took her to
his own house, neither in his Epiftles nor in the
Apocalypse names her so much as once. Paul, the
moft voluminous of the New Teftament writers, is
wholly filent in regard to her.
When the people of Lyftra were making ready to
pav divine honors to Barnabas and Paul, they, hear-
ing of it, " rent their clothes, and ran among the
people, crying out and saying. Sirs, why do ye these
things ? " If these revolted at the idea of being
made the objecSls of religious worfliip, can we sup-
pose that supreme form of it lefs {hocking to the
soul of Mary, which is neceflarily implied in ad-
drefl'mg her as the omniscient and omnipresent
hearer and answerer of prayer ? Such honor is
diftionor. It is an offering of robbery. It robs
God.
STABAT MATEE.
(sung on every FRIDAY DURING LENT.)
^O. 1 . -4« sung in the Churches at Rome.
Gregorian Chan*,
From the " Catholic PnaliMst.''
:§^i
1. Sta
2. Cu.
bat ma - ter do - lo - ro - sa, Jux - ta cm cem
jus a - ni - mam ge - men-tem, Con - tris - tail ; tern
ES5:
— »■■ o
cry - mo - sa,
do - len - tern,
Qua pea de - bat fi - li - ii3.
Per - traa ■ si - vit gla - di - uu.
3. O quam tristis et afflicta
Fuit ilia beuedicta
Mater Unigeniti !
4. Quae mcerebat et dolebat
Et tremebat cum videbat
Nati poeuas inclyti.
5. Quis est homo, qui non fleret,
Matrem Christi si videret
In tanto supplicio ?
6. Quis non posset coutristari,
Piam matrem contemplari
Doleutem cum lilio.
7. Pro peccatis suae geutis
Vidit Jesum in tormentis
Et flagellis subdituni.
8. Vidit suum dulcem natum
Morieuterii, desolatuui
Duni emisit spirituin.
9. Pia mater, fons amoris !
Me seutire vim doloris
Fac, ut tecum lugeam.
10. Fac, ut ardcat cor menra
In amando Christum Deum,
Ut Sibi complaceam.
Sancta mater, istud agas
Crueifixi fige plagas
Cordi meo valiiio.
11
12. Tui nati vulnerati
Tam dignati pro me pati
PcEuas mecuni divide.
13. Fac me tecum pie flare
Crueifixo eoudolere
Douec ego vixero.
14. Juxta crucem tecum starw
Et me tibi sociare
In plauctu desidero.
15. Virgo virginum prseclara
Mihi tiim non sis amara,
Fac me tecum phuigere.
16. Fac ut portem Christi mortem
Passionis fac cousortem
Et plagas recolere.
17. Fac me plagis vulaerari
Cruce hae inebriari
Ob amorem filii.
18. Iiifiammatus et aecensus
Per te, virgo, sim defensua
In die judicii.
19. Fac mc cruce custodiri
Moite Cliristi pifesnuniri
Coufoveri gratia.
20. Quando corpus morietur
Fac ut animae donetur
Paradisi gloria.
STABAT MATEE— Chant for Pour Voices.
IS"©. 3. NovzLLO. From '•'■ Evening Servicey
— ' — d — ^r — ' |-T — 1 ''■ — IT — ^ 1 — r — ' — *~i~;2i — '
Sta-bat ma-ter do - lo
-^':if2'=Z[:5-±T7^=d=ir;jr7=:
ro- sa
.^_4^_J_,_^J
Jux-ta ciu-cem
tr
J®— 1 -
la - cry - mo - sa, Qua pea -de - bat
fi - li - us,
^iii^ilglSliiife^!
]Vo. 3.
^"^ Bohr's Collection."
ir — s?-
:3ipd==Jqd-^=J--3--d-4:^=:ti33==:=---3
Stabat ma-ter do-lo - ro - sa Jux - ta
,— fS^-
cru - cein
;?izt±^=tz±==ipz±±z=zl
|z:±=ip:
:^3
us.
la - cry - mo - sa, Qua pen -de - bat fi - li
-F±^^=F=
o — s
s
PAINTED BV RAPHAE'
MADONNA DI SAN SISTO.
tnhni mnht
(SPECIOSA;
HYMN OF THE JOYS OF MARY
TRAN'^ATED BY
ABRAHAM COLES, M. D., Ph. D.
SECOND EDITION.
NEW YORK
D APPLETON AND COMPANY
1891
STABAT MATER
(SPECIOSA).
R. PHILIP SCHAFF — whose volumi-
nous contributions to the literature and
hiftory of the Chriftian Church refle6t
the higheft honor upon American schol-
arfhip — in a recent number of ''Hours at Home"
(May, 1867), has, thanics to an eye that nothing
escapes, been at the trouble of reproducing, with
learned and inftru6tive comments for the benefit of
readers on this fide of the Atlantic, a newly discov-
ered Stabat Mater, being a Nativity Hymn, writ-
ten it is supposed by the same hand as the Paflion
Hymn, so that hereafter, as he remarks, there will
be two Stabats — the Stabat Mater Dolorosa^ and the
Stabat Mater Speciosa ; the one setting forth the
Joys, the other the Sorrows, of the Virgin Mother
at the Manger and the Crofs.
4 STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA).
The revival of this long-loft Hymn in our time,
after five centuries of forgetfulnefs, is due to A. F.
Ozanam, who, in a work on the Franciscan Poets
(" Les Poetes Franciscains en Italie au XIII® siecle,
avec un Choix de petites Fleurs de Saint Francois,
trad, de I'ltalien," Paris, 1852), has given it once
more to the world. Hitherto there have been but
two tranflations of the Hymn — one into German,
by Cardinal Diepenbrock ; the other, into Englifli,
by Neale, made juft before his death. This Dr.
Schaff" copies in the article referred to. Both Oza-
nam and Neale affume an identity of authorfhip for
the two : and Neale infers, from the want of finifh
and the imperfecSl rhymes, that the Mater Speciosa
was composed firft j but we entirely agree with Dr.
SchafF in thinking that internal evidence, alone,
makes it certain that this is not the case. Ingeni-
ous and exa6t as is the parallel, it is easy enough to
see which was firft and which was second. If
twins, the Mater Dolorosa muft have been the elder.
It is impoffible that " Pertranfivit jubilus " was writ-
ten before '* Pertranfivit gladius."
But we doubt, we confefs, a fimultaneous birth,
STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA). 5
or even a common parentage. In the absence of
hiftorical proof, we fhould think it far more proba-
ble, that the Mater Speciosa was the work of some
admiring imitator, after the other had become famous ;
who, not fully satisfied with his performance, was
waiting to give it its final touches when he fhould have
decided between this and that; which explains the
supernumerary lines appended to the eighth ftrophe.*
Afluming the priority of the Mater Dolorosa^ about
which there cannot be a particle of doubt, it is diffi-
cult to conceive that the other could have been the
work of the same pen. It is only the celebrity of
an original which invites parody. A man would
hardly be a model to himself. True merit, if not
unconscious, is usually modeft, and it is not likely
that our author, at the time he wrote, placed any
special value upon his produ6fion ; much lefs fore-
saw its after succefs. Why then fhould he, in pre-
paring a hymn on the Nativity, prepofteroufly seek
to tie himself down to the use ot the self-same
* " Hunc ardorem fac communem
Ne me facias immunem
Ab hoc defiderio."
'6 STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA;.
words and order of words which he had happened
to employ in compofing a hymn on the Crucifixion ?
After this had grown into public favor, it is easy to
underftand, how some one else, other than the au-
thor, fhould be prompted to attempt so curious and
difficult a tafk, because the verbal semblance would
aid, by aflbciation, in exciting fimilar emotions of
reverent intereft and sympathifing tendernefs. It is
right to ftate, however, that opposed to this conclu-
fion is the hiftorical teftimony of a second edition of
the Italian Poems of Jacopone (Laude di Frate Jac-
opone da Todi), publifhed at Brescia, in 1495, which
contains, in an appendix, several Latin poems as-
cribed to him ; among which, according to Brunet,
are found both this Mater Speciosa.y and the Mater
Dolorosa^ as well as the De Contemptu 3Iundi. There
may be other evidence in support of this opinion, of
which we are ignorant ; but as the case ftands, we
are compelled to adhere to the belief of a twofold
authorfhip ; and accept the above only as supplying
oroof of the earlinefs of its origin.
That the new found Stabat is not wanting in those
qualities which have attracted to its illuflrious pro-
STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA). 'J
totype the admiring regards of men through so
many generations, teftifies to the fkill of the writer.
The fl:ru6lural correspondence between the two is
kept up throughout. Grief and gladnefs are seen
to go hand in hand, finging as they go, to the same
sweet time and measure. Were it only poetry and
not prayer — mere apoftrophe and not reh'gious hom-
age— we would be content ; but, alas ! there clings
to one and the other the fatal taint of idolatry ; and
we are not permitted to wink out of fight so un-
speakable an ofFense againft the purity of the unfhared
worfhip of the infinite Jehovah.
Happily we have other hymns on the Nativity,
againft which this objection does not lie. Milton's,
for example, the grandeft of them all, is wholly to
*' the Infant God," not the human mother. It
divides not its worfhip. It fings and celebrates but
the One, and " prevents " the dawn and " the ftar-
led wizards," that it may be firft with its exclufive
offering " to lay it lowly at His blefled feet." Two
fimple and sweet lines at the close comprise all that
is said of the virgin mother ;
" But see, the virgin bleft
Hath laid her Babe to reft."
8 STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA).
They fland prefixed to the Cradle Hymn of Mrs.
Browning, and may have suggefted that divine lul-
laby, " The Virgin Mother to the Child Jesus."
It is too long to give entire, but a ricochet extraft
may suffice to exhibit its general scope, and furnifh
■material for an interefting and inftrucStive compari-
son with its mediaeval rival :
" Sleep, deep, my Holy One !
My fiefh, my Lord ! — what name ? I do not know
A name that seemeth not too high or low,
Too far from me or heaven.
My Jesus, that is beft ! that word being given
By the majeftic angel whose command
Was softly as a man's beseeching aid,
When I and all the earth appeared to ftand
In the great overflow
Of light celeftial from his wings and head —
Sleep, ileep, my Saving One !
And art Thou come for saving, baby-browed
And speechlefs Being — art Thou come for saving ?
Art come for saving, O my weary One ?
Perchance this fleep, that fhutteth out the dreary
Earth-sounds and motions, opens on Thy soul
High dreams on fire with God.
STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA).
Suffer this mother's kils,
Beft thing that earthly is.
Thus noiselefs, thus. Sleep, fleep my dreaming One !
I 'm 'ware of you, heavenly Presences !
Unsunned i' the sunfhine ! I am 'ware. Ye throw
No fhade againft the wall !
I fall not on my sad clay face before ye —
I look on His.
Ye are but fellow-worfliippers with me !
Sleep, fleep, my worfliipped One !
We sate among the ftalls of Bethlehem.
The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,
Softened their horny faces.
The fimple fhepherds from their ftar-lit brooks.
Brought villonary looks.
As yet in their aftonied hearing rung
The ftrange sweet angel-tongue.
The magi of the Eaft, in sandals worn
Knelt reverent.
lO STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA).
So let all earthlies and celeftials wait
Upon Thy royal ftate.
Sleep, fieep my kingly One !
I am not proud — not proud !
Albeit in my flefh God sent His Son,
Albeit over Him my head is bowed
As others bow before Him, ftill my heart
Bows lower than their knees. O centuries,
Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keep
Watch o'er this fleep —
Say of me as the Heavenly said, ' Thou art
The bleffedeft of women ! ' — blejj'edeji.
Not holieji, not noblejl — no high name
Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a Jhame,
When I fit meek in heanjen. For me, for me
God knonvs that I am feeble like the refiy
We fhould know that a woman wrote this. It is
a woman's utterance, and the truer because it is so.
Great is the myftery of maternity ; great is the joy
of a mother over her firft-born. But, in the ex-
perience of the mother of our Lord, it was more
than the common myftery and the common joy.
STABAT MATER (sPECIOSa).
ii
Heaven had come down to her. She, a lowly
maiden, of meek thoughts, living in retirement, had,
not long before, been surprised by an angelic embas-
sa^^e, authenticating her as the chosen inflrument of
a ftupendous manifeftation, even the revelation of
the great myftery of Godlinefs, God manifeft in
the flefti, and that fleOi her flefli — a holy link born
of her miraculous motherhood. She had felt the
awe of a wondrous o'erfhadowing, and the thrill of a
divine quickening, and the joy of a growing burden,
and had sung her exultant Magnificat^ and had been
full of wonderings and worftiippings, long before the
crowning beatitude of the bringing forth, and the
seeing, and the hearing, and the laying in the bosom,
and the chanting of the Gloria in Excelsis of the
angels, and the homage of the fhepherds, and the
proftrations of the magi. Was fhe therefore proud ?
Proud ! Was Ihe not therefore humble, yea, hum-
bler than the humbled ? Who ought to kneel so
low as fhe ? O for a humility as deep as the grace
is high ! No room here for the petty elations of
vanity. To conceive of her as fitting queen of
heaven, arrogating higheft titles, and receiving, well-
12 STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA).
pleased, the kneeling homage of men and of angels,
— what an indecency ! How it vulgarizes and de-
grades her ; such an inverfion of noblenefs ; such
an emptying of her true honor and proper glory,
which confift in a peerlefs meeknefs, bowing ever
lower and lower at the footftool, and her heart bow-
ing ftill lower than her knees ! Call me ^' Bleffed,"
but call me
" no high name
Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a fhame
When I fit meek in heaven."
There is one other hymn on the same theme by
Crafhaw, so full of paftoral sweetnefs, that we can-
not forbear transcribing it here. Crafhaw, it is said,
formed his flyle on the moft quaint and conceited
school of Italian jpoetry — that of Marino; and
there is often, it muft be admitted, a ftrained ex-
preflion in his verses ; but there are also many ex-
quifite touches of beauty and tendernefs, and a
ftrength withal which more than compensates for
an occafional harfhnefs. Of all his writings, he is
beft known, perhaps, by his verfion of the Dies
Iras. In 1634 he publifhed a volume of Latin
STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA). I3
poems under the title of Epigrammata Sacra, in
which occurs that celebrated verse on the miracle at
Cana : —
" Lympha pudica Deum videt et erubuit."
" The modeft water saw its God and blufhed."
It is a curious fafl: that both Milton and Dryden
have each been credited with the authorfhip of the
line as given In Englifh, varied only by the subftitu-
tion of the epithet " conscious " for " modeft."
His " Hymn on the Nativity as sung by Shep-
herds," given below, was probably suggefted by
Correggio's far-famed pidure in the Dresden Gal-
lery, called " La Notte " (The Night), and forms
a fit companion to it. Pidlure and poem have com-
mon attributes, so that it may properly be said,
that the one is the other, — that the poem is a
pidlure, and the pi6lure a poem. In both, the form
of the Divine Infant is finely imagined as the radi-
ant centre of a supernatural illumination dazzling to
all eyes in the picture except those of the virgm
mother, while figns of daybreak are seen along the
eaftern horizon, emblem of " the dayspring from on
l,igh:"_
14 STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA).
" Gloomy night embraced the place
Where the noble Ir.t.mt h.y :
The Babe looked up and Jhoived its face —
In spite of darknefs it nvas day.
We savv Thee in Thy balmy neft,
Bright dawn of an eternal day —
We saw Thine eyes break from the Eaft,
And chase their trembling ihades awav,
^Ve saw Thee and we bleff'd the fight —
IFe sa~iV Thee by Thine onvn s'lueet light.
She lings Thy tears afleep, and dips
Her kifles in Thy weeping eyes ;
She spreads the red leaves of Thy lips,
That in their buds yet blufliing lie ;
Yet when young April's hulband-fhowers
Shall blefs the fruitful Maia's bed,
We '11 bring the firft-bom of her flowers
To kifs Thy feet, and crown Thy head.
To Thee, dread Lamb ! whose love muft keep
The fhepherds more than they the fheep —
To Thee, meek Majeftj- ! soft King !
Of fimple graces and sweet loves, —
Each of us his lamb will bring,
Each his pair of lilver doves."
Does the nightingale fing more sweetly ?
STABAT MATER (sPECIOSa). I5
" Sweet bird, that fhuns the noise of folly —
IVIoft mufical, moft melancholy."
In this new attempt to turn the Mater Speciosa
into Englifh, we have tried, as in other tranflations,
to preserve, as far as poflible, the form and spirit of
the original. The authorized text of the Mater
Dolorosa^ being that of the Roman Breviary, com-
prises ten ftanzas ; while that of the Mater Speciosa
has two more, namely, the fifth and eleventh, whose
answering ftanzas therefore mulf be looked for in
some other text.
STABAT MATER
(SPECIOSA).
TAB AT Mater speciosa,
Juxta foenum gaudiosa,
Dum jacebat parvulus j
Cujus animam gaudentem,
La6i:abundam ac ferventem,
Pertranfivit jubilus.
II.
O quam lasta et beata,
Fuit ilia immaculata
Mater Unigeniti !
Quae gaudebat et ridebat
Exultabat, cum videbat
Naci Dartum ir.clvti.
HYMN OF THE JOYS OF MARY.
FOOD the glad and beauteous mother,
By the hay, where, like no other.
Lay her little Infant Boy :
Through whose soul — rejoicing, yearn-
ings
And with love maternal burning —
Thrilling paffed the lyric joy.
II.
Oh what grace to her allotted,
Blefied mother and unspotted
Of the Sole Begotten One !
Who rejoiced with filvery laughter
As fhe gazed exulting, after
Birth of her Illuftrious Son.
l8 STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA).
III.
Quis jam eft, qui non gauderet
Chrifti matrem fi videret
In tanto solatio ?
Quis non poflet collaetari
Chrifti matrem contemplari
Ludentem cum filio ?
IV.
Pro peccatis suae gentis,
Chriftum vidit cum jumentis,
Et algori subditum ;
Vidit suum dulcem natum
Vagientem, adoratum,
Vili diversorio.
V.
Nato Chrifto in praesepe,
Cceli cives canunt laete
Cum immense gaudio ;
Stabat senex cum puella,
Non cum verbo nee loquela,
Stupescentes cordibus.
STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA). IQ
III.
Who is he, would joy not greatly,
If he saw Chrift's mother, lately
With such solace happy made ?
Who could view without emotion
That fond mother's rapt devotion.
Playing with her smiling Babe ?
IV.
For His people's fins providing,
Chrift fhe saw with cattle biding.
And exposed to winter keen :
Saw her Darling Offspring, crying
As an infant, worfhipped, lying
In a lodging vile and mean.
V.
O'er that scene surpaffing fable.
Sing they, Chrift born in a ftable,
Heavenly hofts with joy immense:
Old men ftood with maidens gazing,
Speechlefs at that fight amazing.
In aftonifhment intense-
20 6TABAT MATER (SPECIOSAJ.
VI.
Eja Mater, fons amoris,
Me sentire vim ardoris,
Fac ut tecum sentiam
Fac ut ardeat cor meum
In amatum Chriftum Deum,
Ut Sibi complaceam.
VII.
Sanaa Mater, iftud agas,
Prone introducas plagas
Cordi fixas valide.
Tui nati coelo lapfi,
Jam dignati foeno nasci
Poenas mecum divide,
VIII.
Fac me vere congaudere,
Jesulino cohserere,
Donee ego vixero !
In me fiftat ardor tui ;
Puerino fac me frui
Dum sum in exiiio!
STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA). 21
VI.
Make me, Mother, fount of loving,
Feel like force of araor moving,
That I thus may feel with thee !
Let my heart with love be burning
That, in Chrift my God discerning,
I approved of Him may be !
VII.
Do this. Mother, be entreated.
Firmly fix His wounds, repeated
Each in my heart crucified !
Of thy Son — the Heavenly Stranger,
Deigning birth now in a manger —
SuflFerings with me divide !
VIII.
Make me truly fhare thy pleasure.
Cleave to Jesus and Him treasure,
While 1 live and all the while !
Work in me thy love's completenefs,
Feaft me with thy Sweet One's sweetnefs
To the end of my exile !
22 STABAT MATER SPECIOSA).
IX.
Virgo virginum praeclara,
Mihi jam noii fis amara,
Fac me parvum rapere.
Fac ut pulchrum fantem portem.
Qui nascendo vicit mortem,
Volens vitam tradere.
X.
Fac me tecum satiari,
Nato me inebriari,
Stans inter tripudio ! *
Inflammatus et accensus
Obftupescit omnis sensus
Tali de commercio !
XI.
Omnes ftabulum amantes
Et paftores vigilantes
PernotSlantes sociant.
* Since inter never rules the ablative, Dr. SchafF proposes to
read : " ' Stantem in tripudio ! ' referring ' Stantem ' to ' me.' "
SIABAT MATER (sPECIOSAJ. 23
IX.
Maid all other maids exceeding,
Be not bitter to my pleading,
Let me take thy Little One !
Beai the Babe, His sweet smile wooing,
Who in birth wrought death's undoing,
Giving life when His begun !
X.
Fill me with thy Child's carefles.
Make me, drunk with joy's excefies.
In thy leaping transport fnare !
Fired and kindled, ftruck with wonder.
Let each sense the power be under
Of such comme/ce sweet and rare !
XI.
All who love the ftable, blending
With the watching (hepherds, spending
All the nignt, compose one band.
24 STABAT MATER (sPECIOSA),
Per virtutem nati tui
Ora ut ele6li sui
Ad patriam veniant I
XII.
Fac me nato cuftodiri
Verbo Dei prjemuniri,
Conservari gratia ;
Quando corpus morietur,
Fac ut animae donetur
Tui nati vifio.
STABAT MAT£R (sPECIOSa). 2 5
Fray, through ftrength of His deserving,
His elecSl, with course unswerving.
May attain the heavenly land !
XII.
Let me by thy Son be warded,
By the word of God be guarded.
Kept by grace, refused to none !
When my body death hath riven,
■Grant that to my soul be given
Joyful vifion of thy Son !
OLD GEMS IN NEW SETTINGS.
St Augustine and his Mother,
(aRY aCHEFFRR.)
lil Mtin
IN NEW SETTINGS
COMPRISING THE
CHOICEST OF MEDIEVAL HYMNS
WITH
ORIGINAL TRANSLATIONS
ABRAHAM COLES, M. D., Ph. D.
THIRD EDITION.
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1891
CONTENTS.
PAGE
UrBS CcELESTIS SyON ; OR, THE BETTER COUNTRY 7
Veni Sancte Spiritus 50
Veni Creator Spiritus 58
Alphabetic Judgment Hymn (Hymnus Alpha-
BETicus DE Die Judicii) ..... 69
On Contempt of the World (Carmen Jaco-
PONI DE CoNTEMPTU MuNDI,) .... 76
URBS CCELESTIS SYON ;
OR,
THE BETTER COUNTRY.
N Trench's " Sacred Latin Poetry " is
given a beautiful Cento of ninety-fix
lines, descriptive of the Heavenly Zion,
taken from the firft part of a long poem
of nearly three thousand lines, entitled " De Con-
temptu Mundi" vi^ritten in the 12th century by
Bernard de Morlas, Monk of Cluny, so called
to diftinguifli him from his famous contemporary St.
Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux. Of this Cento a new
tranflation is here attempted. Prefixed to it are the
eight opening lines of the Poem, admonitory of the
nearness of Chrift's second coming to judge the
world.
Rev. Dr. John Mason Neale, an accomplifhed
8 URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
scholar of England, juft deceased, whose tranflations
of various mediaeval hymns have met u^ith much and
merited favor, gave a verfion of the larger part of the
above Cento under the title of " The Celeftial Coun-
try," following, as he tells us, the arrangement of
Trench and not that of Bernard. The great popular-
ity which this attained, as evinced by the numerous
hymns compiled from it — " Jerusalem the Golden,"
in particular, having found a place, he gratefully ob-
serves, in some twenty hymnals — "led him to think
that a fuller extra6l from the Latin and a further
tranflation into Englifli might not be unaccept-
able."
Whether by this process there was not as much
loft as gained admits of some doubt. It set afide
Trench's labor of love as impertinent or useless. The
matter of the earlier tranflation, with which many
had become familiar, could only be found by diligent
search, disjecta membra poetee, scattered everywhere
up and down the later work. One, however, might
become reconciled to this, provided improvement
always followed ; but we think this can hardly be
claimed. On the contrary, what is added too often
THE BETTER COUNTRY. g
appears crude, or incongruous, or out of place, or of
inferior intereft. For example, we read : —
" Here, is the warlike trumpet,
There, life set free from fin,
When to the laft Great Supper
The faithful fliall come in ;
When the heavenly net is laden
With fifhes many and great,
( So glorious in its fulness
And so inviolate.)"
Without access to the original, it would be im-
poflible to say which is responfible, the author or
the tranflator, for the flrange groupings contained in
the following verses : —
" Jefus, the Gem of Beauty,
True God and Man, they fing,
The ne-jer-failing Garden,
The ^'■^'^r-golden Ring,
The Door, the Pledge, the Hufband,
The Guardian of the Court,
The Day-ftar of Salvation,
The Porter and the Port."
What better is this than a diftra6ling medley of
names, whose meaning and fitness, so far from being
lO tTRBS CCELESTIS- 6 YON.
immediately obvious, it is hard to discover even with
time and ftudy. Certainly, one needs to pofless a
rare nimbleness of fancy to qualify him to overleap
such wide spaces as intervene between " the never-
failin'j; Garden" and the '• ever-oolden Ring," thence
on from " the Dour, the Pledge, the Hufband," to
the diftant and final refting-place, " the Porter and
the Port" (whatever these may be), without longer
pauses in the tranfition than the punctuation calls for.
The framer of the Cento did well, therefore, we
think, in leaving out lines like these, and no advan-
tage has resulted from their reftoration.
In regard to the extraordinary merit of the orig-
inal poem — at leaft that part of it which forms the
exordium, wherein an attempt is made to set forth
the purity and peace of the heavenly Paradise, by
way of contraft, and for the purpose of throwing
into yet bolder and more appalling relief the abound-
ing pollutions and miseries of earth which it is the
chief defign of the poem to present — there can be
but one opinion. Such is Dr. Neale's appreciation
of its excellence, that he has " no hefitation in say-
THE BETTER COUNTRY. II
ing that he looks on these verses of Bernard as the
moft lovely, in the same way that the Dies Irce is
the moft sublime, and the Stabat Mater is the moft
pathetic, of mediaeval poems. They are, he thinks,
even superior to that glorious hymn on the same
subjecft, the De Glorid et Gaudiis Paradift of St.
Peter Damiani. So Trench looks upon " the Ode
of Cafimir (the great Latin poet of Poland) IJrit
me Patrice decor^ which turns upon the same theme,
— the heavenly homefickness, — with all its claflical
beauty, as a less real and deep utterance than the
poor Cluniac monk's."
The great and immediate popularity of Neale's
tranflation, notwithftanding its defefts, is a further
proof, and the moft conclufive one, perhaps, of all,
that it poflefles the elements of genuine power —
has indeed that imperifhable principle of lyric life
which fits it to be the interpreter of the human heart
in all ages, in the nineteenth century no less than
the twelfth. It too doubtless owes much to its
theme, which has furnifhed other hymns of great
sweetness befides those already named. Two in par-
ticular are deserving of special mention, — one in
12 URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
Latin, Urbs beata Hirmalem^ and one in Englifh,
O Mother dtar^ Jerusalem. But the heavenly heart-
ache, with the soul enamored of its home in the
skies, and longing to depart, never, it is safe to say,
found a sv^^eeter or more touching expreffion than in
these lines of Bernard. In each golden furrow^ of
verse are scattered in rich profufion the ripe verita-
ble seeds of those immortal flow^ers that bloom in
Paradise, whence —
" Gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they ftole
Those balmy spoils. As when to those who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are paft
Mozambic, off at sea north-eaft winds blow
Sabean odors from the spicy fliore
Of Araby the bleft."
We are perpetually reminded, of course, that the
fmger is ftill in the body, in which " he groans, be-
ing burdened" — "without are fightings and within
are fears" — is a mourning exile, waiting deliver-
ance, fick from deferred hope, not yet permitted to
enter the Land of Promise, but nevertheless in lieu
thereof lifted to the Mount of Vifion, and favored
THE BETTER COUNTRY. I^
with ecftatic glimpses that " bring all heaven before
his eyes." No wonder, therefore, his ftrain is a min-
gled one, by turns exultant and sad ; its rejoicings
full of interjected fighs — suspirations and aspirations
in the same breath. The holy inhabitants seem
almoft *' too happy in their happiness ; " it makes the
contraft with the present ftate too great, too painful ;
it even begets doubt, because it seems too much to
expe<5t ; hope is afraid to soar so high. The mind
is described as finking down baffled and overwhelmed
under the prefTure of that " far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory," blinded and overpowered
by the intolerable splendors of the New Jerusalem ;
and we are reminded of that fine outburft of Pindaric
rapture in which " the Bard " of Gray, in like man-
ner dazzled and amazed by the unexpefted fight of
England's diftant renown and greatness, exclaims : —
" But oh, what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height
Descending flow their glittering flcirts unroll?
Vifions of glory, spare my aching fight,
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul."
Of the hiftory of the original poem, this much is
known. It was written about the year 1 145 by
14 URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
Bernard, a Cluniac monk, as already ftated, and ad-
drefled to Peter, his own abbot. Judging from his
writings, he muft have pofTefled a spirit almoft as
dauntless as Luther's. Apparently actuated by a
righteous zeal to correct some of the (hocking abuses
which everywhere prevailed to the disgrace of the
Chriftian name, he in this poem with terrible sever-
ity and with matchless power of sarcasm exposes
and afTails them, — plainly denounces the fhameful
greed and venality of the Roman court, corrupt from
the Pope down, where fimony was openly practiced,
and nothing could be got without money, but any
thing with. Here is a specimen of his manner : —
" Si tua nuncla prsevenit uncia, surge, sequaris ;
Expete liinina, nulla gravairina jam verearis:
Si datur uncla, flat prope gratia Pontificalis ;
Sin procul h^c valet, haec tibi lex manet eft schola talis."
Money is needed, if that has preceded, rise, follow, and
enter;
Bars of the gateway removed fhall be ftraightway, now fear
no preventer ;
Give but the penny, then nigh thee is any Pontifical favor ;
Far off or faileth this thing that availeth, thy case is much
graver.
THE BETTER COUNTRY.
15
Such being its charadler, it is not surprifing, per-
haps, that It has been a greater favorite with Proteft-
ants than with Catholics, and that during the time of
and fince the Reformation editions have multiplied.
It was unburied and firft printed at Paris in 1483.
Flacius, in a rare work publifhed at Bale in 1557,
{f^aria do^orum^ piorumque vivorum de corrupto Ec-
cleftce Jlatu Poemata^) pp. 247—349, gives it with the
title : Bernhardus Cluniacus de Conte?nptu Mundi.
Ad Petrum Abbatum suum. It was reprinted in
1597, and again in 1610, and more recently ftill in
Wachler's " Annals " in 1820. Daniel in his " The-
saurus Hymnologicus " gives only the firft eight lines
under the heading De Novijfimis. These opening
lines are repeated here to illuftrate the ftru£ture of
the verse, which of itself is one of the curiofities of
literature. It is a bold attempt to combine ancient
prosody with modern rhyme. Each hexameter line
is made to confift of five dadiyls and a final trochee,
the second and fourth dactylic feet rhyming together,
and the trochaic ending rhyming with the corre-
sponding foot of the following line ; or, as it may be
otherwise exprefled, it is an example of " leonine
10 URBS COELESTIS SYON.
and tailed rhyme, with lines in three parts, between
which a c^sura is not admiffible." Below we have
sought to represent to the eye these peculiarities of
ftrudlure by marks ; and furthermore, have ventured
a continuation of the attempt juft made, to imitate
the metre in an Englifh tranflation rendered as literal
as poffible. While one would not care to prosecute
it through a long poem, we are persuaded the thing
could be done, and in a manner to make the verse
tolerably readable and efFe6live. The perpendicular
lines of divifion indicate the three parts — the firft
two parts containing two da6tyls each, the second
and fourth forming a rhyme ; and the third part con-
taining one dactyl and one trochee, the final trochee
forming a double rhyme with that of the next line.
De Novissimis.
' Hora novvssima, \\ tempora pesji'/na|| sunt ; vigi/mwj/
Ecce ! mina(r//rr II imminet Avbiter\\\\\e supremus !
Imminet, imw/n^/ ||iit mala term}net\\3equz coronet,
Re£ta remunfrei jjanxia Wberel, \\ :sthera donet,
Auferat aspera || duraque ^ondera || mentis onujla,
Sobria vawniat || improba puwifl/|| utraque_/?(/?^,
lUe piis/J/«wj, II ille gravisyf/KWJ, || ecce ! \tnit Rex I
Surgat homo reus i || Inftat Homo Deiu || a Patre Judex.'"'*
THE BETTER COUNTRY.
Of the Last Times.
17
Laft hours now tolling are, || worft times unrolling are ; ||
watch ! there is danger.
L6 ! in sublimity, || threatening proximity, || hdver'th th' Avdn-
ger!
Hdvereth, hdvereth, || evil uncovereth, || equity crdwneth ;
Rfght He rewdrdeth then, II cdmfort afFdrdeth then, || hdirs of
heaven dwneth ;
Frdm the mind, dnerous || burdens and pdnderous || bedreth He
lightly ;
Rfghteous protdfleth He, || wicked rejd6teth He || bdth alike
rightly ;
Kfng in His clemency || awful supremacy || cdmeth to gather —
Mdn disentdmbing, the|| Gdd-Man him dooming, the || Judge
from the Father.
Surely " there is a pleasure in poetic pains that
poets only know," otherwise it is impoffible to con-
ceive that human patience could have held out in
the building up of three thousand lines in so difficult
a metre. Like the execution of those piilures in
mosaic, seen in St. Peter's at Rome, which took
from twelve to twenty years to complete, it so far
transcends all modern capabilities, that one is tempted
to class Patience, in its higher manifeftations at leaft,
3
l8 URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
among " the Loft Arts." The author himself seems
to have been filled with wonder at his own perform-
ance ; and pioufly acknowledges, that *' if he had
not received directly from on high the gift of intelli-
gence, he had not dared to attempt an enterprise
so little adapted to the powers of the human mind."
What was difficult for the author would be tenfold
more difficult for the tranflator, because there hang
upon him numerous clogs from which the other is
tree. Dr. Neale says : — "I have deviated from
my ordinary rule of adopting the measure of the orig-
inal, because our language, if it could be tortured to
any diftant resemblance of its rhythm, would utterly
fail to give any idea of the majeftic sweetness of the
Latin." Whether it was neceflary or wise to go to
the other extreme — of ballad plainness and fimplicity
— some may doubt.
The artful chara£ler of the verse, which confti-
tuted one of its chief diftin6lions, and upon which
the author had beftowed so much labor, was thereby
neceflarily loft, as well as the richness and melody of
its oft-recurring rhymes. In the tranflation here
given, the writer has sought to preserve *' the leo-
THE BETTER COUNTRY. I9
nine and tailed rhymes, with the lines in three parts,"
only lengthening the third member so as to make of it
another line, and ufing anapefts inftead of da6lyls,
as being a kind of verse better suited to the genius
of Englifh prosody, — the dacElylic form being seldom
used, because less flowing and pleafing to the ear.
Had it been thought beft that the dactylic hexameter
form fhould be retained, he is hardly prepared to go
the length of Dr. Neale and deny its poflibility.
How far the present tranflator has succeeded it is
of course for others to judge. He admits that if it
were as easy to be faultless as it is to find fault, there
would be no excuse for imperfection. He claims
nothing for his verfion. It is sent forth as a timid
and humble candidate for public favor, but at the
same time not as a mendicant, afking alms and beg-
ging leave to be. If worthless, let it die — in other
words, let nobody read it. So of his other verfions.
The name, " The Better Country," w^as chosen
to diflinguifh it from others upon the same theme.
That it will supersede " The Celeflial Country "
is neither expected nor defired.
URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
ORA noviffima, tempora peffima
sunt ; vigilemus !
Ecce ! minaciter imminet Arbiter
ille supremus !
Imminet, imminet ut mala terminet
aequa coronet,
Retta remuneret, anxia liberet,
aethera donet ;
Auferat aspera duraque pondera
mentis onuftae
Sobria muniat, improba puniat
utraque jufte.
THE BETTER COUNTRY.
HE laft of the hours, iniquity towers,
The times are the worft, let us vigils
be keeping!
Left the Judge who is near, and soon
to appear.
Shall us at His coming find flumbering and fleep-
ing.
He is nigh, He is nigh ! He descends from the (ky
For the ending of evil, the right's coronation,
The juft to reward, relief to afford.
And the heavens beftow for the saints' habitation :
To lift and unbind grievous weights from the mind.
To give every man what is juft and is equal,
To make the good glad, and punifti the bad.
To the praise of His juftice and grace in the sequel.
2a URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
Ille piiffimus, ille graviflimus
ecce ! venit Rex!
Surgat homo reus ! Inftat Homo Deus
a Patre Judex.
Hie breve vivitur, hie breve plangitur
hie breve fletur ;
Non breve vivere, non breve plangere
retribuetur ;
O retributio! flat brevis a6lio
vita perennis j
O retributio ! coeliea manfio
flat lue plenis ;
Quid datur et quibus ? asther egentibus
et eruce dignis,
Sidera vermibus, optima sontibus,
aflra malignis.
Sunt modo praelia, poflmodo praemia ;
qualia ? plena.
THE BETTER COUNTRY. qo
Moft clement and dear, moft juft and severe,
Lo ! Cometh the King in terrible splendor,
Man springs from the sod, and the Man who is God,
The Judge from the Father, ftands sentence to
render.
The life here below so brief is brief woe,
A brief mortal space for weeping afforded; —
Not briefly to figh, then lie down and die.
Is the life that 's to be hereafter awarded.
O moft bleffed award ! the gift of the Lord,
A life whose long years cannot be computed j
O ftrange award given ! a manfion in heaven
Afligned to the guilty, the sometime polluted.
What 's given, and to whom ? In the firmament,
room
To the needy and those by the cross worthy
rendered —
Yea, on Mercy's sweet terms, orbs celeftial to
worms,
To felons the beft, to the hateful ftars, tendered.
Now are battles moft hard ; after these the reward.
Reward of what sort ? Reward without meas-
ure ; —
24 URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
Plena refeilio, nullaque paflio,
nullaque poena ;
Spe modo vivitur, et Sion angitur
a Babylone ;
Nunc tribulatio, tunc recreatio,
sceptra, coronac ;
Tunc nova gloria pedlora sobria
clarificabit,
Solvet enigmata, veraque sabbata
continuabit.
Liber et hoftibus, et dominantibus
ibit Hebrasus j
Liber habebitur et celebrabitur
hinc jubilaeus.
Patria luminis, inscia turbinis
inscia litis,
Give replebitur, amplificabitur
Israelitis ;
THE BETTER COUNTRY. 25
Full refrefhment, repose, full exemption from woes,
No suffering, no pain, only unalloyed pleasure.
Now live we in hope, and Zion muft cope
With Babylon proud and the powers infernal ;
Now afflidion makes sad, then delight fhall make
glad,
And there fhall be crowns and sceptres supernal.
Then new glory divine on the righteous fhall fhine.
And chase from their breafls the darkness that
paineth,
Chase doubt and chase fear, and enigmas make
clear —
The light of true sabbaths, "the reft that re-
maineth."
All free from the foe and his mafler fhall go
The Hebrew, whose feet heavy chains now en-
viron ; —
He henceforth held free fhall keep jubilee.
No more to be bound in affliction and iron.
A Country of light, unacquainted with night,
Where of tempeft and flrife nothing breaks the
deep flumber.
With inhabitants free it ceplenifhed fhall be —
Enlarged with true Israelites countless in number.
4
26 URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
Patria splendida, terraque florida,
libera spinis,
Danda fidelibus eft ibi civibus
hie peregrinis.
Tunc erit omnibus inspicientibus
ora Tonantis
Summa potentia, plena scientia,
pax pia Sanctis ;
Pax fine crimine, pax fine turbine,
pax fine rixa,
Meta laboribus, atque tumultibus
anchora fixa.
Pars mea Rex meus, in proprio Deus
ipse decore,
Visus amabitur, atque videbitur
Au6tur in ore.
Tunc Jacob Israel, et Lia tunc Rachel
efficictur,
Tunc Syon atria pulchraque patria
perficietur
THE BETTER COUNTRY. 1']
Country splendid and grand, and a flowery land
That 's free from all thorns and free from all
dangers,
Is there to be given to the free born of heaven —
The faithful, w^ho here are now pilgrims and
{Irangers.
Shall then be unrolled, to all that behold
The face of the Thunderer, and to such solely.
The utmofl extreme of power supreme,
Full knowledge, the unutterable peace of the holy :
A peace by the tongue of flander unftung ; [cor,
A peace without ftorm, without wrangling or ran-
To labors a goal, and to billows that roll
And tumults a fixed immovable anchor.
My King is my part, God Himself in my heart,
In His own proper beauty auguft and endearing,
I fhall see and enfhrine and challenge as mine, —
My Author and Saviour, — before Him appear-
ing.
Then the Israel of grace fhall Jacob displace,
And Leah be Rachel in form and afFeilion ;
Then Zion fhall ftand, a beautiful land.
In all the completeness of God-like perfedlion.
aS URhS CCELESTIS SYON.
O bona Patria, lumina sobria
te speculantur,
Ad tua nomina lumina sobria
collacrymantur ;
Eft tua mentio pectoris un£lio,
cura doloris,
Concipientibus aethera mentibus
ignis amoris.
Tu locus unicus, illeque coelicus
es paradisus,
Non ibi lacryma, sed placidiflima
gaudia, risus.
Eft ibi confita laurus, et infita
cedrus hysopo j
Sunt radiantia jaspide moenia
clara pyropo :
Hinc tibi sardius, inde topazius,
hinc amethyftus ;
Eft tua fabrica concio coelica
gemmaque Chriftus.
FAITH AND HOPE.
(ARY 3CHEFFER.)
THE BETTER COUNTRY.
29
O Country moft dear, our longing eyes here.
As they view thee afar, with defire are aching ;
At the sound of thy name our hearts are aflame.
And our eyes are aweary 'twixt weeping and
waking.
Thy mention brings reft, is balm to the breaft,
Is the cure of our grief, and takes away sadness ;
The thinking of thee and the bliss that fhall be.
Is a fire of love and a fountain of gladness.
The only place thou that draws our hearts now, —
Thou Paradise art, thou our blissful Hereafter ;
No tears are found there, no sorrow, no care,
But sereneft rejoicings and innocent laughter.
There planted are seen, eternally green.
The laurel and cedar, with the hyflbp low grow-
ing ;
There are walls with the rays of the jasper ablaze,
With the carbuncle bright, incandescent and
glowing :
The sardius fhines there, here the topaz moft rare.
Here the beams of the amethyft with the reft
mingle ;
To thy fabric belong the heavenly throng.
The corner-ftone Chrift, gem precious and fingle.
•^O UR3S CCELESTIS SYON.
Tu fine littore, tu fine tempore,
fons modo rivus,
Dulce bonis sapis, eftque tibi lapis
undique vivus.
Eft tibi laurea, dos datur aurea,
sponsa decora,
Primaque Principis oscula suscipis,
inspicis ora :
Candida lilia, viva monilia
sunt tibi, sponsa,
Agnus adeft tibi, Sponsus adeft tibi,
lux speciosa ;
Tota negocia, cantica dulcia
dulce tonare.
Tarn mala debita, quam bona praebita
conjubilare.
Urbs Syon aurea, patria la6lea,
cive decora,
Omne cor obruis, omnibus obftruis
et cor et ora.
THE BETTER COUNTRY.
3^
Without fhore, without time, everlafting, sublime,
Thou, fountain and ftream late hitherward flowing,
To the good tafteft sweet, living rock at their feet
That all through the wilderness gladdened their
going. [never brown ;
Thine 's the laurel's green crown with its leaf
Rich dower all golden, fair spouse, is thee given ;
Thine 's the exquifite bliss of the Prince's firft kiss.
And the fight of His face like a vifion of heaven.
Fair lilies and white, living gems flafhing bright,
Compose, happy spouse, thy bridal adorning ;
Sits the Lamb by thy fide, and beams on His bride.
Like the sun when he breaks through the gates
of the morning ;
Thy whole sweet employ, in triumph and joy.
Sweet anthems of praise to warble forever ;
Evils merited tell, bleflings granted as well.
With fhoutings to grace that terminate never.
City golden and bleft, from thy fields' teeming breaft
Flow rivers ot milk, — fair people, fair dwellings;
Thou the whole heart doft whelm, such the
charms of thy realm.
Choked is the voice with the heart's mighty
swellines.
32 URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
Nescio, nescio, quae jubilatio,
lux tibi qualis,
Quam socialia gaudia, gloria
quam specialis :
Laude ftudens ea tollere, mens mea
viila fatiscit ;
O bona gloria, vincor ; in omnia
laus tua vicit.
Sunt Syon atria conjubilantia,
martyre plena,
Give micantia, Principe ftantia,
luce serena :
Eft ibi pascua, mitibus afflua,
prasftita san6tis,
Regis ibi thronus, agminis et sonus
eft epulantis.
Gens duce splendida, concio Candida
veftibus albis
Sunt fine fletibus in Syon aedibus
aedibus almis j
THE BETTER COUNTRY. 33
Confined here below, I pretend not to know
What forms this rejoicing, the kind of light given,
Nor how lofty the heights of those social delights,
Nor how special the glory that conftitutes heaven.
These ftriving to raise in an effort of praise,
My mind overmaftered, lo ! fainteth and faileth ;
O glory unknown, I am conquered I own.
Thy superior praise in all things prevaileth.
There are ftioutings and calls in thy echoing halls
With the martyr hoft full, a glorious mufter,
With the citizen, bright, with the Prince aye in fight,
Serene evermore with a soft, sacred lufl:re.
There sweet paftures around for the gentle abound,
For the saints a dear flock by the water-brooks
grazing ;
There's the throne of the King, there the palace-
walls ring
With the sound of a multitude feafUng and praifing.
Nation glorious and grand, through the conquering
hand
Of the Leader, a hoft in white veftments fhining.
Through the long rolling years they remain with-
out tears ; ['"g*
In the dwellings of Zion there is reft from repin-
5
34
URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
Sunt fine crimine, sunt fine turbine,
sunt fine lite,
In Syon aedibus editioribus
Israelitae.
Urbs Syon inclyta, gloria debita
glorificandis,
Tu bona vifibus interioribus
intima pandis :
Intima lumina, mentis acumina
te speculantur,
Peitora flammea spe modo, poftea
sorte iucrantur.
Urbs Syon unica, manfio myftica,
condita coelo.
Nunc tibi gaudeo, nunc mihi lugeo,
triftor, anhelo :
Te quia corpore non queo, peilore
saepe penetro.
(^.■'ML'KLl ■ )
THE BETTER COUNTRY.
35
Without crime, without ftorm, to mar and deform,
Without weapons of ftrife, without matter of
quarrel,
The Israelites bleft in their lofty homes reft, —
The olive of peace intertwined with the laurel
O illuftrious name, Zion, higheft in fame.
Whose glory is that to the glorified owing.
Thou doft knowledge dispense to the innermoft
sense.
Thy innermoft good thus secretly fhowing.
My innermoft eyes, thus piercing the fkies,
From the mind's higheft peaks delighted behold
thee ;
Now my breaft, all on fire with hope and defire,
Transported expedls sometime to enfold thee.
Thou Zion art one, befide thee is none, —
Upreared in the fkies a myftical dwelling, —
Now in thee I am glad, now in me I am sad,
I sob and I figh with breaft heaving and swelling.
Since the body's dull clod keeps me back from my
God,
Thee to pierce I oft try with spiritual pinion,
36
URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
Sed caro terrea, terraque carnea,
mox cado letro.
Nemo retexere, nemoque promere
suftinet ore
Quo tua moeniaj quo capitalia
plena decore ;
Opprimit omne cor ille tuus decor,
O Syon, O pax,
Urbs fine tempore, nulla poteft fore
laus tibi mendax ;
O fine luxibus, O f>ne lu6libus,
O fine lite.
Splendida curia, florida patria,
patria vitae !
Urbs Syon inclyta, turris et edita
littore tuto,
Te peto, te colo, te flagro, te volo,
canto, saluto ;
THE BETTER COUNTRY. 37
But earthy flefh, fleftiy earth, makes th' attempt
little worth,
Ajid I quickly fall back to the senses' dominion.
No mortal may dare with his mouth to declare —
The tafk were presumptuous and desperate the
duty —
Where thy walls, how they rise, in what part of the
fkies
Thy capitals fhine complete in their beauty.
Thy charms, they weigh down the heart wholly and
drown,
O Zion ! O Peace beyond all conceiving !
City bleft, without time, dear, tranquil, sublime.
No poffible praise can e'er be deceiving.
No delights vain and lewd, and no sorrows intrude,
No ftrife with its wafting, its burning and blafting ;
Home happy and high, flowery land of the fky.
Land native to bliss and the life everlafting.
City, seen from afar, where the glorified are.
On a safe and high fhore, lo ! thy towers are
soaring ;
Thee I sue, I admire, thee I love, I defire,
Sing hymns unto thee, and salute thee adoring.
jg URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
Nec meritis peto, nam meritis ineto
morte perire,
Nec reticens tego, quod meritis ego
filius irae ;
Vita quidem mea, vita nimis rea,
mortua vita^
Quippe reatibus exitialibus
obruta, trita.
Spe tamen ambulo, praemia poftulo
speque fideque.
Ilia perennia poftulo praemia
nodte dieque>
Me Pater optimus atque piiflimus
ille creavit ;,
In lue pertulit, et lue suftulit,
a lue lavit.
Gratia coelica suftinet unica
totius orbis.
THE BETTER COUNTRY. 39
Not on merit, but grace, I reft solely my case.
For, measured by merit, condemned my condition ;
Not dumb and perverse do I cover the worse —
1 own I 'm a child of wrath and perdition.
My life 's a life spilt, void of good, full of guilt,
A life like to death, without vital expreflions,
Its innocence quenched, from its proper life
wrenched,
Deftroyed by reason of deadly transgreffions.
Notwithftanding in hope I walk softly and grope.
In hope and in faith heavenly guerdons beseeching ;
I trembling and weak, eternal joys seek.
By night and by day imploring hands reaching.
Our Father above, whose nature is love.
The beft and the deareft, He made and He
saved me ;
With my vileness He bore, from my vileness He
tore.
From my fm and uncleanness He graciously
laved me.
Grace celeftial alone, direct from the throne,
Is the sovereign provifion of God's own appointing,
40 URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
Parcere sordibus, interioribus
unftio morbis ;
Diluit omnia coelica gratia.
fons David undans
Omnia diluit, omnibus affluit
omnia mundans ;
O pia gratia, celsa palatia
cernere praefta,
Ut videam bona, feftaque consona
coelica fefta.
O mea, spes mea, tu Syon aurea,
clarior auro,
Agmine splendida, ftans duce, florida
perpete lauro,
O bona patria, num tua gaudia
teque videbo ?
O bona patria, num tua prasmia
plena tenebo?
Die mihi, flagito, verbaque reddito
dicque, Videbis.
THE BETTER COUNTRY. 41
The sordid of soul to save and make whole,
For inward diseases the potent anointing.
Grace wafhes away all pollution for aye, —
The Fountain of David, as free as redundant,
Makes pure all within, makes clean from all fin,
To all alike flows in measure abundant.
O excellent grace ! to an excellent place
Me raise to discern ftately palaces gleaming.
At a diftance, at leaft, see the heavenly feaft
With holieft mirth and melody teeming.
Thou Zion ! O mine, my hope all divine !
Like gold, but far nobler, t' our dazzled eyes
looming,
Moft brilliant thy hoft, but their Leader 's thy boaft,
Brave region with laurel perpetually blooming.
O Country moft sweet, fhall my eyes ever greet
Thy turrets and towers, and know thy enjoy-
ments ?
O Country moft bleft, e'er in thee fhall I reft,
Pofless thy rewards and ftiare thy employments ?
Tell me, I pray, render answer, and say:
« Thou ftialt hereafter moft surely behold me —
42 URBS CCELESTIS SYON.
Spem solidam gero ; remne tenens ero ?
die, Retinebis.
O sacer, O pius, O ter et amplius
ille beatus,
Cui sua pars Deus : O miser, O reus
hac viduatus.
Bernardus Cluniacensi«.
THE BETTER COUNTRY.
43
I hope entertain, the thing hoped shall I gain ?
O say : Thou forever fhalt have, and fhalt hold
me.
Advanced to that sphere, O holy, moft dear,
O bleffe'd, thrice blefled and blefled forever.
Who with cleaving of heart, chose God for his
part :
O wretched, undone, who from this did him
sever.
Bernard of Cluny. (XII. Century.)
VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS.
LL lovers of sacred song agree in affign-
ing to this Hymn a very high place.
Clichtoveus thinks it is not poffible to
praise it enough, and finds it easy to
believe that the author in writing it was divinely
inspired. Trench characterizes it " as the lovelieft
of all the Hymns in the whole circle of Latin Sacred
Poetry." Nor is it difficult to discover the grounds
of so favorable an eftimate.
Rarely has the spirit of prayer been more happily
embodied, or " winged for speedier flight." It is
the soul on its knees, devoutly receptive, every door
thrown open, eager, expe6lant, looking and longing
for the immediate coming of the Celeftial Vifitant,
going forth to meet Him, to kiss His feet, to haften
His approach, to teftify a holy and grateful welcome,
not unmindful, but yet not deterred by the unspeak-
VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS. 45
able greatness of the solicited condescenfion, in afk-
ing One " whom the heaven of heavens cannot con-
tain," to ftoop to the need and poverty of its low
eftate, afiured by the sure word of promise, and en-
couraged by paft experiences of His faithfulness,
that " whosoever afketh receiveth." Truly, it were
hard to find a serener, sweeter, truer, truftfuller,
terser utterance, where words so few exprefled so
much, making the air mufical, charming the ear with
their soft, plaintive cadences, and penetrating the
heart with the infinuating grace of their prevalent
pleading.
The merits of its metrical ftrufture are in keeping
with its other excellences. It has the triplet char-
acter of Sequences in general, confifting of five
ftrophes of fix lines of seven syllables, or ten half
ftrophes, the firft and second lines of which rhyme
together, the third rhyming with the corresponding
third line of the following half flrophe. The trans-
lation here given is made to conform to the original
in these as well as in other respefts.
A royal authorfhip is claimed for the Hymn. It
is believed to have been written by Robert II. of
4-6 VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS.
France, who at the age of twenty-four, in the year
996, succeeded to his father, Hugh Capet, and
reigned thirty-three years. He is described as —
Omnigena virtutis alumnus.^ —
" Pieux, jufte, savant, charitable, fiddle,
De toutes les vertus, quel plus parfait module ? "
By the sentence of Pope Gregory V., his firft mar-
riage, which had been to Bertha, his coufin, was
diflblved. He was afterwards married to Conftance,
surnamed Blanche, daughter of Wilh'am Count d' Aries
& de Provence, a beautiful princess, but proud, capri-
cious, and unbearable, who condu6led herself in so
ftrange and violent a manner that but for the moder-
ation and wisdom of her hufband the kingdom would
have been overturned. Befides being one of the
mildeft of sovereigns and the meekeft of men, he is
spoken of as one of the moft learned of his time,
particularly in mathematics. So charitable was he
that he had always a thousand poor under his care,
whom he fed. He was addi£led to both poetry and
mufic, and so (killed in both of these arts that some
of his compofitions are ftill extant and in use. The
VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS. 47
following example of magnanimity, more than royal,
is given. A dangerous conspiracy againft his king-
dom and life having been discovered and the authors
arrefted, as the other nobles were aflembled to con-
demn them to death, he caused them to be enter
tained in a splendid manner, and the next day
admitted them to the Holy Communion ; after which
he set them at liberty, saying, that he could not put
to death those whom Jesus Chrift had juft received
at His table. If these few glimpses of his life re-
veal to us the nature of some of his sorrows, the
hymn here given, admitting that he was the author,
Ihows no less clearly, as Trench remarks, the nature
of his consolations.
The Lutheran Form of Ordination prescribes that
the " Veni San6te Spiritus " be sung at the begin-
ning of that service. In the Romiih Church it is
sung on Whitsunday and every day throughout the
week till the Sabbath following. From the general
flaughter of the Sequences made in the fixteenth
century, this and three others were the only ones
that escaped.*
* Ses Diss Ir^, p. 61.
VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS.
ENI, San6le Spiritus,
Et emitte coelitus,
Lucis tuae radium.
Veni, pater jvtuperum,
Veni, dator munerum,
Veni, lumen cordiuT*.
II.
Consolator optime,
Dulcis hospes animae,
Dulce refrigerium.
In labore requies,
In aeftu temperies.
In fletii solatium.
VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS.
OME, O Holy Spirit, come,
And from Thy celeftial heme
Of Thy light a ray impart !
Come Thou, Father of the poor!
Come Thou, Giver of heaven's ftore !
Come Thou, Light of every heart !
II.
Promised Comforter and beft,
Of the soul the deareft Gueft,
Sweet Refrefhment here below.
Reft, in labor, to the feet,
Coolness in the scorching heat,
Solace in the time of woe.
7
50 VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS.
III.
O lux beatiflima !
Reple cordis intima
Tuorum fidelium.
Sine tuo numine,
Nihil eft in homine,
Nihil eft innoxium.
IV.
Lava quod eft sordidum,
Riga quod eft aridum,
Sana quod eft saucium !
Fledge quod eft rigidum,
Fove quod eft frigidum,
Rege quod eft devium !
V.
Da tuis fidelibus,
In te confidentibus,
San6luni septenarium : *
Da virtutis meritum,
Da salutis exitium.
Da perenne gaudium !
RoBERTus Rex Francis,
» The seven gifts of the Spirit.
VENI SANCTE SPIRIFUS. 5 1
III.
O moft blefled Light ! the heart's
Innermoft, moft hidden parts
Of Thy faithful people, fill !
Not without Thy favor can
Any thing be good in man,
Any thing that is not ill.
IT.
What is sordid make Thou clean,
What is dry make moift and green,
What is wounded heal for aye.
Bend what 's rigid to Thy will,
Warm Thou whatsoe'er is chill.
Guide what 's devious and aftray.
V.
To Thy faithful given be —
Those confiding flill in Thee —
Gracioufly the holy seven :
Give Thou virtue's recompense,
Give a safe departure hence,
Give th' eternal joy of heaven.
Robert II. of Franxe.
(Beginning of XL Century.)
VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS.
HIS well-known Hymn, older than the
" Veni San6le Spiritus," is of the same
pure type, both being happily chara6ler-
ized by a moft unromifh catholicity that
makes them sweetly acceptable to all Chriftian hearts.
Here, at leaft, there is no profane admixture of bor-
rowed or imitated paganism — no Handing in the old
Roman Pantheon, with a retention of not a little of
the form and spirit of the old worfhip, paying vows
to manifold apotheofized Chriftian saints, as once to
deceased pagan heroes or mythological divinities —
but a solemn address and devout prayer to that
"Creator Spirit," who, in the sublime language of
Milton, —
" from the firft
Was present, and with mighty wings outspread
VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS. 53
Dove-like sat brooding on the vaft abyss
And made it pregnant " —
** the third subfiftence of the divine infinitude, illu-
minating Spirit, the joy and solace of created things ; "
*' who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge,
and sends out His Seraphim with the hallowed fire
of His altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom
He pleases ; " the third person of " the One tri-
personal Godhead " —
" that doth prefer,
Before all temples, th' upright heart and pure," —
not invoked as a Muse to inspire the poet's song and
bear him upward on the wings of a swift rapture to
** the higheft heaven of invention," — but as the
indispensable Begetter of a new spiritual life in the
loft soul of man ; the Finger of the mighty power
of God whose saving and converting touch, reaching
to the deepeft springs of human thought, feeling, and
condu6l, uplifts to the serene altitude of "heavenly
places in Chrift Jesus ; " the myftery of an ineffable
Cause, working effedlually " to will and to do " in
perfect harmony with the utmoft moral freedom of
54
VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS.
acSlion and volition ; the supreme Gift, and the infi-
nite Giver of gifts ; the refident Paraclete, domefti-
cated in human consciousness ; the Light of a fteady
illumination, and the Fire of a continual joy ; the
incredible sweetness of whose comforting and com-
pensatory presence and perpetual indwelling, accord-
ing to the marvelous saying of the Divine Lord
Himself, making it expedient that He fhould go away
in order that there might follow this subftituted and
surpafling blefledness to His bereaved and orphaned
disciples when deprived of His own fight and soci-
ety ; — the Promise of the Father, Proceeding Spirit,
manifefted in a miraculous outpouring of baptismal
fullness on the day of Pentecoft, as a crowning proof
to all, that He whom the Jews had crucified had
indeed paffed into the higheft heaven and been to
** the right hand of God exalted," thence to dispense
this immeasurable grace to the children of men, that
they in turn might celebrate in glad doxologies the
triune Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft, through-
out all ages. Amen !
Although it is not certainly known that Charle-
magne is the author, he is commonly so reputed.
VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS. 55
Others think the probabilities are in favor of Gregory
the Great. They say, the claflic metre with the in-
termingling rhymes, and the flyle generally, are Greg-
ory's. So, too, the claflic scanfion of the fifth line
making the penult of " ParaclTtus" long, betrays, it is
argued, the Grecian which Gregory was, and Char-
lemagne was not. On the other hand, it is afTerced
that Charlemagne was qaite equal to the tafk. " His
eloquence," says his Secretary, " was abundant. He
was able to express with facility all he wifbed ; and
not content with his mother tongue, he beflowed
great pains upon foreign languages. He had taken
so well to the Latin, that he was able to speak pub-
licly in that language almofl: as eafily as in his own.
He underftood Greek and ftudied Hebrew." He
wrote other verses, which are ftill extant : — an epi-
taph on Adrian I., the Song of Roland, an ode to
the scholar Warnefride, and an epigram in hexameter
verse. There exifts a letter addrefTed by him to his
bifhops, entitled De gratid septiformis Spiritus^ fhow-
ing that he took a special intereft in the subje61: of
the Hymn. Moieover, the twofold proceflion of
the Holy Ghoft, affirmed in the fixth ftrophe, and
56 VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS.
with an emphafis implying that it was confidered an
important article of belief, was firft confirmed as the
do6trine of the Weftern Church by a Synod aflem-
bled under imperial auspices at Aix-la-Chapelle in
the year 809 ; and this circumftance ftrengthens, it
is thought, the probability that he was the author.
Charlemagne, " claimed by the Church as a saint,
by the French as their greateft king, by the Germans
as their countryman, by the Italians as their emperor,"
died at Aix-la-Chapelle, we are told, with his crown
upon his head, and his copy of the Gospels upon his
knees.
Befides being used as a Pentecoftal Hymn, it has
been the cuftom to employ it on great occafions like
the coronation of kings, the celebration of synods,
and, in the Romifh Church, the creation of popes,
&c. It is the only Breviary Hymn retained by the
Episcopal Church, where a place is afligned it in the
offices for the ordination of priefls and the consecra-
tion of biftiops. The Prayer Book contains two
verfions. Dryden's admirable paraphrase is well
known. The rendering here given is much more
close. In German there are several tranflations.
VENI CREATOR bPlRITUS. cy
One by Luther begins : Kum Schepher heiliger
Geiji.
The Latin text varies in different editions. Some
interpolate between the 5th and 6th verses the fol-
lowing additional one :
Da gaudiorum prsemia,
Da gratiarum munera,
Diffolve litis vincula,
Adftringe pacis foedera.
The final verse is sometimes given thus :
Sit laus Patri cum Filio,
Sanfto fimul Paracllto,
Nobisque mittat Filius,
Charisma San6ti Spiritus.
That the final verse was added afterwards may be
deduced from the fa6t that the quantity of '' Para-
clito " in this differs from that of " Paraclltus " in
the second verse of the hymn — the penult in the
one case being fhort and in the other long. The
Hymn moreover in its present form has, so to speak,
a double doxology or celebration of the Trinity,
which increases the probability that it ended origin-
ally with the fixth verse.
VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS.
ENI, Creator Spiritus,
Mentes tuorum vifita,
Imple superna gratia,
Quae tu creafti pectora.
II.
Qui Paraclitus diceris
Donum Dei altiflimi,
Fons vivus, ignis, charitas,
Et spiritalis un£i:io.
HI.
Tu septiformis munere,*
Dextrae Dei tu digicus,^
Tu rite promiirum Patris,
Serrnone ditaiis (juttura.
VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS.
REATOR Spirit, Gueft Divine,
Come, vifit and inhabit Thine,
Enter the mind's Moft Holy Place,
And breafts Thou madeft fill with grace.
II.
Thou who art called the Paraclete,
Of God Moft High the Gift complete.
The Living Fount, the Fire, the Love,
And Holy Undion from above.
III.
Sevenfold the gifts at Thy command,
Finger of God's supreme right hand.
The Promise of the Father, who
Doft throats enrich with utt'rance new.
60 VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS.
TV.
Accende lumen senfibus,
Infunde amorem cordibus,
Infirma noftri corporis,
Virtute firmans perpeti.
V.
Hoftem repellas longius,
Pacemque dones protinus :
DucSlore fie te praevio
Vitemus omne noxium.
VI.
Per te sciamus da Patrem
Noscamus atque Filium,
Teque utriusque Spiritum
Credamus omni tempore.
VII.
Deo Patri fit gloria,
Et Filio, qui a mortuis
Surrexit, ac Paraclito,
In saeculorum saecula.
Carolus Magnus.
VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS. bl
IV.
Kindle the senses, light impart,
Infuse Thy love in every heart,
Weaken our body's bent to wrong.
In lafting virtue making ftrong.
V.
Drive farther' off the hellifh foe,
And conftant peace henceforth beftowr.
May we — Thou, Leader in the way —
All evil fliun, nor go aftray.
VI.
Grant we may know in verity
The Father and the Son through Thee j
And in all time may Thee believe
Spirit of Both, and so receive.
VII.
Be God the Father glorified.
And God the Son who for us died
And rose, and God the Paraclete,
Ages on ages infinite.
Charlemagne. (Beginning of IX. Century.)
62 VENl CREATOR SPIRITUS.
1 The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (Isaiah xi. 2, 3) are:
I. Wisdom (sapient la) ; 2. Underftanding (intelle^us) ;
3. Counsel (con/ilium) ; 4. Fortitude (^fortitudo) ; 5. Knowl-
edge (^scientia) ; 6. Piety (pi etas) ; 7. Fear of the Lord
(titnor). Whence the verse : —
Sap. Intel, con. for. set. pi. ti. collige dona.
2 The title here given to the Holy Ghoft — Digitus Dei —
borrowed from Luke xi. 20, and answering to the Spiritus Dei
of Matthew xii. 28, is adapted, so it is thought, to suggeft
other ideas befides the fingle one of power. As the fingers are
various but have a common origin in the hand, so there are
diverfities of gifts and operations, but the same Spirit. Not-
withftanding divilions, there is a root of unity. Jerome finds
in it moreover a hint of the homooufian union of the Spirit
with the Father and the Son. " If, therefore," he argues, " the
Son is the hand and arm of God, and the Holy Ghoft His fin-
ger, there is one subftance of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghoft." It is ftated in Exodus that " the Lord delivered unto
Moses two tables of ftone written with the finger of God ; "
and Paul speaks of the Corinthian converts as " epiftles of
Chrift, written not with ink, but the Spirit of the living God ;
not in tables of ftone, but in the flefhly tables of the heart," —
thus furnilhing another illuftration of scriptural usage in as-
cribing the same funftion and work to the finger of God and
the Spirit of God.
ALPHABETIC JUDGMENT-HYMN.
(HYMNUS ALPHABETICUS DE DIE JUDICII.)
HE venerable Bede, an Englifh monk,
who lived in the seventh century, makes
mention of this Alphabetical Hymn, so
that it muft have been written before
his time. The author is unknown. Daniel re-
marks : '* It is interefting to compare this piece on
the Laft Judgment with that moft celebrated one,
Dies ins^ dies illa^ by which in majefty and terror,
not in holy fimplicity and truthfulness, it is surpafTed."
Neale, likewise, speaking of this Hymn, says : " It
manifeftly contains the germ of the Dies Ira^ to
which, however inferior in lyric fervor and efFedl, it
scarcely yields in devotion and fimple realization of
the subjedl."
HYMNUS DE DIE JUDICII.
PPAREBIT repentina Dies Magna
Domini
Fur obscura velut no6le improvisos oc-
cupans,
B revis totus turn parebit prisci luxus saeculi,
Totum fimul cum clarebit prseteriffe sasculum.
C langor tubae per quaternas terrae plagas concinens,
Vivos una mortuosque Chrifto ciet obviam.
D e coelefti Judex arce, majeftate fulgidus
Claris angelorum choris comitatus aderit :
E rubescet orbis lunae, sol et obscurabitur,
Stella cadent pallescentes, mundi tremet ambitus ;
P lamma, ignis anteibit jufti vultum Judicis,
Ccelos, terras et profundi fluftus ponti devorans.
G loriosus in sublimi Rex sedebit solio,
Angelorum tremehun^a circumftabaiU agmina,
JUDGMENT-HYMN.
S a thief in the night, when none walceth
to ward,
yl Shall be the surprise of that Day of the
^■^ Lord ;
B rief fhall then seem all its pomp and display
When the world fhall have paffed and its fafhion
away.
C langor of trumpet-call, everywhere spread,
Shall gather to Chrift all the quick and the dead.
D azzling from heaven the Judge fhall descend, —
Bright choirs of angels His coming attend :
E 'en as blood (hall the moon be, the sun it fhall
fade,
Stars paling fhall fall, and the world be afraid ;
'P ore the face of the Judge, lo ! a fire fhall sweep
Devouring the heavens, the land and the deep.
Glorious the King fhall be seated on high.
While trembling around ftand the hofts of the
fky.
66 HYMNUS DE DIE JUDICII.
H ujus omnes ad elecSti colligeniur dexteram,
Pravi pavent a finiftris hoedi velut foetidi :
I te, dicit Rex ad dextros, regnum coeli sumite,
Pater vobis quod paravit ante omne saeculum,
C aritate qui fraterna me juviftis pauperem,
Caritatis nunc mercedem reportate divites.
L seti dicent : quando, Chrifte, pauperem te vidimus,
Te, Rex magne, vel egentem miserati juvimus :
M agnus illis dicet Judex : cum juviftis pauperes,
Panem, domum, veftem dantes, me juviftis
humiles.
N ec tardabit et finiftris loqui juftus Arbiter :
In Gehennae maledi6ti flammas hinc discedite ;
O bsecrantem me audire despexiftis mendicum,
Nudo veftem non dediftis, neglexiftis languidum.
P eccatores dicent : Chrifte, quando te vel pauperem,
Te, Rex magne, vel infirmum contemnentes
sprevimus.
Q uibus contra Judex altus : mendicanti quamdiu
Opem ferre despexiftis, me spreviftis improbi.
JUDGMENT-HYMN. 67
H is elecSt on the right fhall be gathered, the while
On His left fhall be placed the wicked and vile ;
" I nherit the kingdom " — Ihall the King say to
those — [was ;
" The Father prepared for you ere the world
"Kindly, Me poor, ye did succor in love,
" Love's guerdon receive now, ye rich, from
above."
" L ord," they fhall say, '' when did we e'er see
*' Thee poor, and in want gave succor to
Thee ? "
"Me" — fhall He say — " ye did succor, 't was I
'* When ye cared for the poor, fhared the timely
supply."
N ext, over the left, in loud thunders fhall burfl :
** To the flames of Gehenna depart ye accurfl :
"On Me needy ye looked and turned a deaf ear,
*' When naked Me clothed not, when fick
came not near."
*' P ray tell us, Great King, when, poor or forlorn,
" Did we ever contemn Thee or treat Thee
with scorn ? "
Q ueflioned, the Judge fhall then answer : "Know ye
*' What time ye the needy despised ye did Me."
68 HYMNUS DE DIE JUDICII.
Retro ruent turn injufti ignes in perpetuos,
Vermis quorum non morietlir, flamma nee reftin-
guitur,
S atan atro cum miniftris quo tenetur carcere,
Fletus ubi mugitusque, ftrident omnes dentibus,
T unc fideles ad coeleftem suftollentur patriam,
Choros inter angelorum regni petent gaudia,
U rbis summae Hirusalem introibunt gloriam
Vera lucis atque pacis in qua fulget vifio.
X PM regem jam paterna claritate splendidum
Ubi celsa beatorum contemplantur agmina —
Y dri fraudes ergo cave, infirmantes subleva,
Aurum temne, fuge luxus fi vis aftra petere,
Z ona clara caftitatis lumbos nunc prascingere,
In occursum Magni Regis fer ardentes lampades.
JUDGMENT-HYMN. 69
R ufh fhall the wicked then, plunged in the fire
Where the worm Ihall not die nor the flame
fliall expire.
S atan in chains fhall there hold them beneath,
Where are weeping and wailing and gnaftiing of
teeth.
T hen the faithful, upborne to the heavenly land,
Shall partake of the joys at Jehovah's right hand ;
'U fhered fhall be in that Salem above
Where fhines the true vifion of light, peace, and
love ;
'X alted as King, in divinity drefl.
There Chrift fhall be viewed by the hofts of the
blefl.
Y ou the Serpent's wiles fhun, you the weak ones
suftain,
Scorn gold, flee excess, would you the flars gain.
Z one of chaflity bright be your girdle, forth bring
Your lamps trimmed and burning to meet the
Great King.
Unknown Author.
(Vn. Century, or earlier.)
ON CONTEMPT OF THE WORLD.
(CARMEN JACOPONI DE CONTEMPTU MUNDI.)
HIS Hymn was firft printed in Paris,
1496. It has been ascribed to various
persons, among the reft to St. Bernard ;
also to Walter Mapes, Archdeacon of
Oxford, England, who lived in the twelfth or thir-
teenth century. But Wadding, in his " Annals of
the Minorites," points to Jacopone as the true au-
thor of this as well as of the Stabat Mater; and
this now would seem to be the received opinion.
Du Meril collates the third and fourth verses with
the following lines taken from another part of the
same poem as "The Better Country," — Bernard's
" De Contemptu Mundi." The reader will readily
recognize the rhyming hexameter with which he w-as
made familiar in the former extra6l :
ON CONTEMPT OF THE WORLD. 7I
*' Eft ubi gloria nunc, Babylonia ? sunt ubi durus
Nabuchodonozor et Darii vigor, illeque Cyrus ?
Nunc ubi curia pompaque lulia ? Caesar obifti ;
Te truculentior, orbe potentior ipse fuifti.
Nunc ubi Marius atque Fabricius inscius auri ?
Mors ubi nobilis et memorabilis aftio Pori ?
Diva philippica, vox ubi coelica nunc Ciceronis ?
Pax ubi civibus atque rebellibus ira Catonis ?
Nunc ubi Regulus, aut ubi Romulus, aut ubi Remus?
Stat rosa priftina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus."
Here is more in the same vein, occurring in a
hymn " On Death," of an uncertain date and by an
unknown author :
" Ubi Plato, ubi Porphyrius ;
Ubi TuUIus aut Virgilius ;
Ubi Thales, ubi Empedocles,
Aut egregius Ariftoteles ;
Alexander ubi rex maximus ;
Ubi Heftor Troias fortiffimus ;
Ubi David rex doftilTimus,
Ubi Salomon prudentiffimus ;
Ubi Helena Parisque roseus ;
Ceciderunt in profundum ut lapides :
Quis scit, an detur eis requies."
DE CONTEMPTU MUNDL
I.
UR mundus militat sub vana gloria,
Cujus prosperitas eft tranfitoria?
Tarn cito labitur ejus potentia,
Quam vasa figuli, quae sunt fragilia.
II.
Plus crede Uteris scriptis in glacle,
Quam mundi fragilis vanae fallaciae !
Fallax in prasmiis virtutis specie,
Quae nunquam habuit tempus fiduciae.
III.
Die, ubi Salomon, dim tarn nobilis,
Vel ubi Sampson eft, dux invincibilis ?
ON CONTEMPT OF THE WORLD.
I.
;HY toileth the world in the service of
glory?
Whose triumphs are brief, though the
proudeft in ftory ?
Its power is, though high as the heart ever flattered,
Like the vase of the potter, that quickly is ihattered.
II.
Truft a pledge writ in ice when winter is leaving —
Than the world's fair falsehoods less vain and
leceivins: !
Moft false in its promise of virtue's rewarding.
The time of redemption it never regarding.
III.
O say, where is Solomon, aforetime so glorious?
Or where now is Sampson, a leader vidlorious ?
74 DE CONTEMPTU MUNDI.
Vel pulcher Absalom, vultu mirabilis,
Vel dulcis Jonathas, multum amabilis ?
IV.
Quo Caesar abiit, celsus imperio ?
Vel Xerxes splendidus, totus in prandio ?
Die ubi Tuilius, clarus eloquio ?
Vel Ariftoteles, summus ingeivio ?
V.
Tot clari proceres, tot rerum spatia,
Tot ora praesulum, tot regna fortia,
Tot mundi principes, tanta potentia,
In i6lu oculi clauduntur omnia.
VI.
Quam breve feftum eft haec mundi gloria !
Ut umbra hominis, lie ejus gaudia,
Qua£ semper subtrahunt asterna praemia,
Et ducunt hominem ad dura devia.
ON CONTEMPT OF THE WORLD. 75
Or beautiful Absalom, of wondrous appearing ?
Or Jonathan sweet, exceeding endearing ?
IV.
Where 's Caesar gone now, in command high and
able ?
Or Xerxes the splendid, complete in his table ?
Or Tully, with powers of eloquence ample ?
Or Aristotle, of genius the higheft example ?
V.
So many great nobles, things, adminiflrations,
So many high chieftains, so many brave nations,
So many proud princes, and power so splendid.
In a moment, a twinkling, all utterly ended.
VI.
Earth's glory how vain, a brief banquet its meas-
ure !
As is a man's fhadow even so is its pleasure,
Which forever of endless rewards makes dedu6lion.
And leads in the hard devious paths of deflru6lion.
76 DE CONTEMPTU MUNDI.
VII.
O esca vermium, O mafia pulveris,
O ros, O vanitas, cur fic extolleris ?
Ignoras penitus, utrum eras vixeris j
Benefac omnibus, quamdiu poteris !
VIII.
Haec mundi gloria, qu£e magni penditur,
Sacris in literis flos foeni dicitur ;
O leve folium, quod vento rapitur !
Sic vita hominis hac via tollitur.
IX.
Nil tuum dixeris, quod potes perdere !
Quod mundus tribuit, intendit rapere.
Superna cogita ! cor fit in sethere !
Felix, qui potuit mundum contemnere !
Jacobus de Benedictis.
ON CONTEMPT OF THE WORLD. ']']
VII.
O food for the worms, O mass of duft drifted,
O dew, O vanity, why so uplifted ?
Thou know'ft not at all, if thou 'It live till to-
morrow ;
Do good while thou canft to the children of sorrow !
VIII.
This glory of earth, which is much eflimated.
As the flower of grass is in Holy Writ rated :
O leaf light and frail, by the wind snatched and
harried !
Ev'n so human life is away from earth carried.
IX.
Call nought then thine own which is lofl ere one
knoweth !
Earth meaneth to take the good it beflov/eth :
On supernal joys think ! let thy heart be in heaven !
Contemn thou the world, and beware of its leaven !
Jacopone. (XIII. Century.)
WORKS
ABRAHAM COLES,
REVIEWED BY
EMINENT CRITICS.
WORKS OF ABRAHAM COLES, M.D. LLD.
LATIN HYMNS, in Four Parts, viz.:
I. Dies Ir^, in Thirteen Original Versions. Sixth
edition. (1891.)
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III. Stabat Mater (Speciosa). Second edition.
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National Lyrics, and Hymns for Children. Beautifully
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THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF OUR LORD.
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CRITICS AND CRITICISMS.
Richard Grant White (1821-1885), in "The Albion":
" We commend the volume, * Dies Irae, in Thirteen Original Ver-
sions,' as one of great interest; and an admirable tribute from
American scholarship and poetic taste to the supreme nobility of the
original poem. Dr. Coles has shown a fine appreciation of the
spirit and rhythmic movement of the Hymn, as vyell as unusual
command of language and rhyme; and we much doubt whether any
translation of the ' Dies Irae,' better than the first of the thirteen, will
ever be produced in English, except perhaps by himself. . . . As to
the translation of the Hymn, it is perhaps the most difficult task
that could be undertaken. To render ' Faust ' or the ' Songs of
Egmont' into fitting English numbers, would be easy in com-
parison."
The Rev. Samuel Irenaeus Prime, D. 0.(1812-1885), ^^
the "New York Observer":
"The book is a gem both typographically and intrinsically; beau-
tifully printed at the ' Riverside Press,' in the loveliest antique type,
on tinted paper, with liberal margins, embellished with exquisite
photographs of the great masterpieces of Christian Art, and withal
elegantly and solidly bound in Matthew's best style, a gentleman-
like book, suggestive of Christmas and the centre-table; and its
contents worthy of their dainty envelope, amply entitling it as well
to a place on the shelves of the scholar The first two of the
thirteen versions of the 'Dies Irse ' appeared in the 'Newark Daily
Advertiser' as long ago as 1847. The}"^ were extensively copied by
the press, and warmly commended — particularly by the Rev. Drs.
James W. Alexander and W. R. Williams, scholars whose critical
acumen and literary ability are universally recognized — as being
the best of the English versions in double rhyme; and examples of
singular success in a difficult undertaking, in which many, and of
eminent name, had been competitors. The eleven other versions
are worthy companions of those which have received such eminent
endorsement. Indeed, we are not sure but that the last, which is
in the same measure as Crashaw's, but in our judgment far superior,
will please the general taste most of all."
William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), in the New York
''Evening Post":
" There are fev/ versions of the Hymn which will bear to be
compared with these; we are surprised that they are all so well
done."
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), in "The Atlantic
Monthl}^":
" Dr. Coles has made, we think, the most successful attempt at
an English translation of the Hymn that we have ever seen
He has done so well that we hope he will try his hand on some of
the other Latin Hymns. By rendering them in their own metres,
and with so large a transfusion of their spirit as characterizes his
present attempt, he will be doing a real service to the lovers of
that kind of religious poetry in which neither the religion nor
the poetry is left out. He has shown that he knows the worth
of faithfulness."
*' Christian (Quarterly) Review:"
"Of Dr. Coles' remarkable success as respects these particulars
(namely, faithfulness and variety), no one competent to judge can
doubt. . . . For all that enters into a good translation, fidelity to
the sense of the original, uniform conformity to its tenses, preser-
vation of its metrical form without awkwardly inverting, inele-
gantly abbreviating, or violently straining the sense of the words,
and the reproduction of its vital spirit— for all these qualities Dr.
Coles' first translation stands, we believe, not only unsurpassed,
but unequalled in the English language."
''The Boston Transcript" says:
"The ' Dies Irje' is by far the most interesting hymn to Protestants
and poets, of all that our fathers used to sing or hear in a strange
tongue ' not understanded of the people;' and so thoroughly has the
translator (Dr. Coles) entered the circle of the old song's heat and
strength that he has been carried through it again and again, and
here are more than a dozen versions of the same Latin words, and
an historical criticism in a strong, earnest and poetical style akin
to that of the hymn itself."
Lady Jane Franklin, wife of Sir John Franklin, when
in this country, met Dr. Coles at the residence of a
mutual friend; similarity of tastes, and the interest
taken by Dr. Coles in the search for her husband,
ripened the acquaintanceship into that of friendship.
From her letter written from New York, October 22d,
i860, we quote the following :
"Dr. Abraham Coles:
"Dear Sir— I cannot deny myself the pleasure of thanking you
once more for your most beautiful little book, 'The Dies Irse, in
Thirteen Original Versions,' which I value not only for its intrinsic
merit, but as an expression of your very kind feelings towards me>
Believe me, gratefully and truly yours."
William C. Prime, in the "Journal of Commerce":
"Dr. A. Coles has long been known to the literary world as
specially successful in the translation of Latin Hymns. His render-
ings of the ' Dies Irae ' are familiar to many readers. He has now
also prepared a book entitled 'Old Gems in New Settings,' an exquisite
volume, in which we find the ' De Contemptu Mundi,' the ' Veni
Sancte Spiritus, and other fine old favorites skillfully and grace-
fully translated. The grand hymn or poem of Bernard de Clugny,
of which the extracts in this book are styled ' Urbs Coelestis Syon,'
is rendered in a style very nearly resembling the original, and
f gives the reader, who does not understand Latin, an excellent idea
of the peculiar characteristics of the hymn of Bernard. Besides
these, we have the ' Stabat Mater,' with a complete history of the
noble hymn, and a very fine translation. The lovers of old hymns
owe a special debt of gratitude to Dr. Coles for the good taste and
the thorough appreciation and ability which he brings to the work
of placing these glorious old songs within reach of the modern
world. We could wish them to become favorites in every family,
and they will so become in spite of their Latin origin."
The Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D., LL. D., in "Hours at
Home":
"There are about eighty German translations of the ' Stabat
Mater' and several English translations. But very few of the latter
strictly preserve the original metre. The English double rhyme
rarely expresses the melody and pathos of the Latin. Dr. Abraham
Coles, the well-known author of fourteen translations of ' Dies Irae,'
has probably best succeeded in a faithful rendering of the ' Mater
Dolorosa.' * * * The admirable English version of the ' Mater
Dolorosa,' which carefully preserves the measure of the original,
is from Dr. Coles, who kindly granted us permission to use it."
''The Republican," Springfield, Mass.:
"Dr. Abraham Coles won fame, and sure fame, by the most
poetic and truthful translations ever given of that great mediaeval
hymn, the ' Dies Irae.'"
George Ripley (1802-1880), in the "New York Tribune":
" United with a rare command of language and facility of versi-
fication, this is the secret of the eminent success with which the
translator has reproduced the solemn litany of the Middle Ages in
such a variety of forms. If not all of equal excellence, it is hard to
decide as to their respective merits, so admirably do they embody
the tone and sentiment of the original in vigorous and impressive
verse. The essays which precede and follow the Hymn, exhibit the
learning and the taste of the translator in a most favorable light,
and show that an antiquary and a poet have not been lost in the
study of science and the practice of a laborious profession. In
addition to the thirteen versions of ' Dies Irae,' the volume contains
translations of the ' Stabat Mater,' ' Urbs Coslestis Syon,' ' Veni
Creator Spiritus,' and other choice mediaeval hymns which have
been executed with equal unction and felicity.
" We have also a poem by the same author, entitled 'The Micro-
cosm,'read before the Medical Society of New Jersey at its centenary
anniversary. It is an ingenious attempt to present the principles
of the animal economy in a philosophical poem, somewhat after
the manner of Lucretius, and combining scientific analysis with
religious sentiment. In ordinary hands, we should not regard this
as a happy, nor a safe experiment, but the dexterity with which it
has been managed by Dr. Coles, illustrates his versatile talent as
well as the originality of his conceptions.
The Rev. James McCosh, D. D., LL. D., President
of the College of New Jersey, in a letter to Dr. Coles :
" Princeton, N. J.
"I have read with the liveliest delight your translations of the
' Latin Hymns.' I wonder how you could have drawn out thirteen
of the ' Dies Irse,' all in the spirit and manner of the original, and
yet so different. I thought each the best as I read it. * * * *
I have read enough of ' The Microcosm ' to see that it is thoroughly
scientific."
Richard Stockton Field, LL. D., (1803-1870), in 1838
Attorney General of New Jersey; in 1862 United States
Senator; in 1863 appointed by President Lincoln United
States District Judge for the District of New Jersey; at
the time of his death President of the New Jersey His-
torical Society:
" Princeton, N. J.
"Dr. Abraham Coles:
"My Dear Sir — With the original 'Dies Irse' and 'Stabat
Mater' I have long been familiar. They have always had a pecul-
iar charm, I may say fascination, about them, and I have loved to
repeat them. And now I have no hesitation in saying that the}'
never have been, and I doubt if they ever will be, as v/ell translated
into English verse as they are in your volume.
" Knowing the difficulty of the task, seeing how others have
failed. I am indeed astonished at your success. With the strictest
fidelity, your translations have all the tenderness, pathos and
rhythm of the beautiful and touching originals. I speak more
particularly of the first of the ' Dies Irae ' and of the ' Stabat Mater.'
The two first stanzas of the latter are perfect.
"Your 'Microcosm,' too, is a noble poem. It has many strik-
ingly beautiful passages. It evinces science and culture, and poet-
ical talent of high order. You display great command of language,
and great facility of versification. Your prose also is easy and
graceful. I am glad of the opportunity afforded me of rendering
this feeble tribute to their merits. Very truly yours."
The " Newark Daily Advertiser :"
"Dr. Coles has supplied a v/ant and done a graceful v.'ork in
"The Microcosm." What the flower or babbling stream is to Words-
worth, that is the stranger, more complex, and more beautiful human
frame to our author. In its organs, its powers, its aspirations, and
its passions, he finds ample theme for song. . . Everywhere the
rhythm is flowing and easy, and no scholarly man can peruse the
work without a glance of wonder at the varied erudition, classical,
poetical, and learned, that crowds its pages, and over-flows in foot-
notes. And through the whole is a devout religious tone and a
purity of purpose worthy of all praise."
Edmund C. Stedman:
" Dr. Coles' researches, made so lovingly and conscientiously in
his special field of poetical scholarship, have given him a distinct
and most enviable position among American authors. We of the
younger sort learn a lesson of reverent humility from the pure
enthusiasm with which he approaches and handles his noble themes.
The ' tone ' of all his works is perfect. He is so thoroughly in sym-
pathy with his subjects that the lay reader instantly shares his
feeling; and there is a kind of 'white light' pervading the whole —
prose and verse — which at any time tranquilizes and purifies the
mind."
The Rev. Robert Turnbull, D. D.:
"I have finished the reading of ' The Microcosm,' which has
afforded me unmingled delight. It is really a remarkable poem,
and has passages of great beauty and power. It cannot fail to
secure the admiration of all capable of appreciating it, Its ease,
its exquisite finish, its vivid yet delicate and powerful imagery, and
above all its sublime religious interest, entitle it to a very high place
in our literature."
John G. Whittier:
" Dr. Abraham Coles is a born hymn writer. No man living or
dead has so rendered the text and the spirit of the old and wonder-
ful Latin Hymns. * * * j^jg '^n the Days' and his ' Ever "With
Thee ' are immortal songs. It is better to have written them than
the stateliest of epics. * * * fhe idea of 'The Microcosm' is
novel and daring, but it is worked out with great skill and deli-
cacy. * * * ' The Evangel' is a work of piety and beauty. The
Proem opens with strong, vigorous yet melodious verse. I see no
reason why the Divine Story may not be fitly told in poetry."
Rev. S. I. Prime, D. D., in "The New York Observer":
" 'The Evangel in Verse,' is the ripest fruit of the scholarship,
taste and poetic talent of one of our accomplished students of Eng-
lish verse, whose translations of ' Dies Irae' and other poems have
made the name of Dr. Coles familiar in the literature of our day.
In the work before us he has attempted something higher and
better than any former essay of his skillful pen. He has rendered
the Gospel story of our Lord and Saviour into verse, with eopious
notes, giving the largest amount of knowledge from critical
authorities to justify and explain the readings and to illuminate the
sacred narrative. . . . He excludes everything fictitious, and clings
to the orthodox view of the character and mission of the God-man.
The illustrations are a complete pictorial anthology. Thus the
poet, critic, commentator and artist has made a volume that will
take its place among the rare productions of the age, as an illustra-
tion of the genius, taste, and fertile scholarship of the author."
George Ripley, in the "New York Tribune" :
" The purpose of this volume, 'The Evangel,' would be usually
regarded as beyond the scope of poetic composition. It aims to re-
produce the scenes of the Gospel History in verse, with a strict ad-
herence to the sacred narrative and no greater degree of imaginative
coloring than would serve to present the facts in the most brilliant
and impressive light. But the subject is one with which the author
cherishes so profound a sympathy, as in some sense to justify the
boldness of the attempt. The Oriental cast of his mind allures him
to the haunts of sacred song, and produces a vital communion with
the spirit of Hebrew poetry. Had he lived in the days of Isaiah or
Jeremiah, he might have been one of the bards who sought inspira-
tion 'at Siloa's brook that flowed fast by the oracle of God.' The
present work is not the first fruits of his religious Muse, but he is
already known to the lovers of mediaeval literature by his admir-
able translations of the ' Dies Irse.' . . . The volume is brought out
in a style of unusual elegance, as it respects the essential requisites
of paper, print and binding, while the copious illustrations will at-
tract notice by their selection of the most celebrated works of the
best masters."
The Rev. James McCosh, D. D., LL. D., upon the
publication of " The Evangel : "
"College of New Jersey,
"Princeton, N. J.
" You are giving to the world further proof that we did ourselves
honor in conferring upon you some years ago the honorary degree
of LL. D. * • " * * I spent several hours last Sabbath in read-
ing your poem, and relished it very much."
Daniel Haines (1801-1877), i^ 1S43 elected Governor
of New Jersey, and re-elected in 1847; Judge of the
Supreme Court; one of the committee on the reunion
of the two branches of the Presbyterian Church :
" Hamburg, N. J,
"My Dear Sir — I can scarcely find fitting words in which to
express my sincere thanks for your kind remembrance of me in the
presentation of the beautiful copy of your recent work, ' The
Evangel in Verse.' From the introduction, the proem and a few
chapters, I judge it to be a work of rare excellence. The metrical
composition is pleasant to the ear and eye, and is remarkable for its
literal meaning. To me the greater charm is its clear and forcible
expressions of evangelical truth and sound Christian doctrine.
" It is the most succinct and complete refutation of the doctrine
of Darwin and Huxley that I have seen.
"The Christian most owes you a debt of gratitude for your
labor and research, and heartfelt thanks to God for giving you the
ability to produce a book so full of instruction, and affording so
much gratification to the cultivated mind."
The Rev. George Dana Boardman, D. D.:
" ' The Evangel in Verse ' is a feast to the eve and ear and heart.
The careful exegesis, the conscientious loyalty to the statements of
the Holy Story, the sympathetic reproduction of a remote and
Oriental past, the sacred insight into the meaning of the Peerless
Career, the homageful yet manly, unsuperstitious reverence, the
rhythm as melodious as stately, the frequent notes, opulent in learn-
ing and doctrine and devotion, the illustrations deftly culled from
whatever is choice in ancient and modern art, these are some of
the many excellencies which give to 'The Evangel in Verse' an im-
mortal beauty and worth, adding it as another coronet for Him on
whose brow are many diadems."
The Rev. Charles Hodge, D. D., LL. D. (1797-1878):
" I admire the skill which 'The Evangel' displays in investing
with rainbow hues the simple narrations of the Gospels. All, how-
ever, who have read Dr. Coles' versions of the " Dies Irse ' and other
Latin Hymns must be prepared to receive any new productions
from his pen with high expectations. In these days when even the
clerical office seems in many cases insufficient to protect from the
present fashionable form of scepticism, it is a great satisfaction to
see a man of science and a scholar adhering so faithfully to the
simple Gospel."
The Hon. Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen :
" United States Senate Chamber,
"Washington, D. C.
" My Dear Doctor — Many thanks to you for having written
'The Evangel.' It is admirably conceived and executed. While
the poem impresses the truth, it will lure many who would have
remained uninformed to the valuable instruction contained in the
Notes. The notes on Darwin, The Logos, Herod, and the miracle
at Ajalon, are excellent. The poem brings out many scriptural
truths, which are not on the surface. Let me say, it is a great thing
to have written the book — to have your labor associated with sal-
vation."
The Rev. Robert Lowell, D.D., in the "Church Monthly":
" Dr Coles is plainly a man of a very religious heart and a deeply
reverential mind. . . . Moreover he has so much learning in his
favorite subject, and so much critical instinct and experience, that
those who can relish honest thinking, and tender and most skillful
and true deductions, accept his teaching and suggestion with a ready
— sometimes surprised — sympathy and confidence. Add to all this,
that he has the sure taste of a poet, and the warm and loving earn-
estness of a true believer in the redeeming Son of God, and the
catholic spirit of one who knows with mind and heart that Christian-
ity at its beginning was Christianity, and we have the man who can
write such books as earnest Christian people will welcome and be
thankful for. . . . In this new book he proposes 'that 'The Evangel'
shall be a poetic version, and verse by verse paraphrase, so far as it
goes, of the Four Gospels, anciently and properly regarded as one.'
He makes an exquisite plea, in his preface, for giving leave to the
glad words to rejoice at the Lord's coming in the Flesh, for which all
other beings and things show their happiness In the notes
the reader will find (if he have skill for such things) a treasure-house,
in which everything is worthy of its place. Where he has offered
new interpretations, or set forth at large interpretations not gener-
ally received or familiar, he modestly asks only to have place given
him, and gives every one free leave to differ. Everywhere there is
the largest and most true-hearted charity. . . . The reader cannot
open anywhere without finding in these notes, if he be not wiser or
more learned than ourselves, a great deal that he never saw, or
never saw so well set forth before."
Stephen Alexander, LL. D., Professor of Mechanics
and Astronomy in the College of New Jersey:
" Princeton, N. J.
"Abraham Coles, M. D., LL. D.:
"My Dear Sir-1 have delayed the acknowledgement of the
receipt of your beautiful ' Evangel' until I could make some return
after the same fashion. Please accept my sincere thanks, as well
as my congratulations on your great success. I am always inter-
ested in your books, and always learn something from them.
"With this I send a copy of my ' Statement and Exposition of
Certain Harmonies of the Solar System.' which I hope may reach
you safely. Please accept the same, with my respects and regards.
I think the Notes at the end and the supplement may especially
interest you."
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes :
'. There is a kind of straightforward simplicity about the poetical
paraphrases which remindsone of the homelier but still always inter-
esting verses which John Bunyon sprinkles like drops of heavenly
dew along the pages of the Pilgrim's Progress. The illustrations
add much to the work, in the way of ornament, and aid to the imag-
ination. One among them is of terrible power, as it seems to me,
such as it would be hard to show the equal of in the work of any
modern artist. I mean Holman Hunt's ' Scapegoat.' There is a
whole Theology in that picture. It haunts me with its fearful sug-
gestiveness like a nightmare. I find ' The Evangel ' an impressive
and charming book. Itdoes notprovoke criticism-it is too devout,
too sincere, too thoroughly conscientious in its elaboration to allow
of fault-finding or fault-hunting."
William Cullen Bryant :
" I have
read 'The Evangel' with pleasure and satisfaction. The
versification of the Lord's Prayer is both an expansion of the sense
and a commentary. The thought has often occurred to me what a
world of meaning is there wrapped up, and that meaning is admira-
bly brought out."
Henry Woodhull Green, LL. D., (1802-1876), Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey from 1846
till i860, when he became Chancellor :
"Trenton, N. J.
"Abraham Coles, LL. D,, Newark, N. J.:
" My Dear Sir — I have read as much of ' The Evangel ' during
the month since I received it as my leisure and the state of my
health have permitted. Of its literary merits, I do not feel myself
qualified to judge, but its perusal has given me great pleasure. I
have been particularly impressed with the fidelity with which you
have adhered to the sacred narrative, unmarred by the decorations
of heathen mythology or papal fable. I regard that as no ordinary
merit. I can well understand the strong temptation under which a
man of high classic culture must, in a work of this kind, constantly
labor, to turn from the stern simplicity of the sacred narrative to
seek embellishment amid the flowers of classic fiction. To have
resisted successfully such temptation, I regard as a very high merit;
and I congratulate you on the production of a work, which, I cannot
doubt, will redound to your own honor and the honor of OUR State.
With high regard, I am, very respectfully yours."
Charles H. Spurgeon, writing from Westwood, Beulah
Hill, Upper Norwood, speaks of "The Evangel" as "a
grand volume," and concludes his affectionate letter
with the words :
"Peace be to you, and every blessing. May Scotch Plains be a
spot wherein Jesus dwells with a happy household. Yours very
heartily."
The Hon. William Earl Dodge, (1805-1883), merchant
and philanthropist, in a letter, written from his resi-
dence in New York City, to Dr. Coles :
"Mrs. Dodge and myself have very much enjoyed 'The Evan-
gel,' having carefully read it. Such perfect conformity to the text
and spirit of the sacred narrative, so beautifully transferred to
verse, we have seldom found."
Thomas Gordon Hake, M. D., author of "Madeline,
and Other Poems and Parables":
" 12 Portland place,
"West Kensington, W., London.
"I have read 'The Evangel,' and 'The Light of the World,'
with deep interest, and with assurance that the learning and intelli-
gence displayed in executing so difficult a work will secure it a
lasting place in our joint national literature."
The "New York Observer":
" The skill of Dr. Coles as an artistic poet, his reverent, religious
spirit, and the exalted flight of his muse in the regions of holy medi-
tation are familiar to our readers. It is, therefore, superfluous for
us to do more than announce a new and elegant volume from his
pen — ' The Microcosm and Other Poems.' It is rich in its contents.
'The Microcosm' is an essay in verse on the science of the human
Body; it is literally the science of physiology condensed into 1,400
lines. The many occasional poems that follow are the efflorescence
of a mind sensitive to the beautiful and rejoicing in the true; find-
ing God in everything, and delighting to trace the revelation of His
love in all the works of His hand. Such a volume is not to be
looked at for a moment and then laid aside. Like the great epics,
it is a book for all time, and will lose none of its interest and value
by the lapse of years. The publishers have given it a splendid dress,
and the illustrations add greatly to the attractions of this trulv ele-
gant book."
The " New York Times ":
" The flavor of the book, 'The Microcosm and Other Poems,' is
most quaint, suggesting, on the religious side, George Herbert, and
on the naturalistic side, the elder Darwin, who, in 'The Botanic
Garden,' laid the seed of the revolution in science, accomplished by
the patient genius of his grandson. Some of the hymns for children
are beautiful in their simplicity and truth."
"The Critic":
" The long poem, ' The Microcosm,' which gives its name to the
present collection, has many beautiful and stately passages. Among
the shorter pieces following it, is to be found some of the best devo-
tional and patriotic poetry that has been written in this country."
John Y. Foster, author and editor, in "Frank Les-
lie's Illustrated Newspaper":
" In this exquisite and brilliantly illustrated volume, the scholarly
author has gathered up various children of his pen and grouped
them in family unity. ' The Microcosm,' which forms one-fifth of the
volume of 350 pages, is an attempt to present, in poetical form, a
compendium of the science of the human body. Tn originality of
conception and felicity of expression, it has not been approached by
any work of our best modern poets. The other poems are all
marked by the highest poetic taste, having passages of great beauty
and power."
Hon. Justin McCarthy :
" 20 Cheyne Garden, Chelsea, London, England.
"Dear Dr. Coles — I am surprised to see, in looking through
your volume, 'The Microcosm and Other Poems,' that you have been
able to add three more versions to those you have already made of
that wonderful Latin hymn, perhaps the greatest of all, 'Dies Irje.'
Certainly it is one of the most difficult to translate. I like your last
version especially."
The "Examiner and Chronicle":
"The title-poem in this exquisitely printed and charmingly illus-
trated volume, ' The Microcosm and Other Poems,' has been for some
time before the public, and has received generous commendation
for the tact and skill evinced in handling a very unpromising theme.
A poetic description, minute and thorough going of the human body
was a serious undertaking; but Dr. Coles delights in what is diffi-
cult and hazardous. He had already associated his name forever
with the mediaeval Latin hymn, ' Dies Irse,' by publishing no less than
thirteen distinct versions of it. In the volume before us he gives
us three more versions. The other poems will not detract from the
author's previous reputation."
Hon. Horace N. Congar, lawyer, editor, United States
Consul at Hong Kong, China, under President Lincoln;
and Consul at Prague, Bohemia, under President Grant:
" United States Consulate,
" Prague, Bohemia.
"There is one thing, my dear Doctor, about your publications
which no one can deny. You print your own poetical thoughts and
■conceptions. They are not copies of some other writer, but stand
out clear and distinct with j'our own diction and strength; written
for the scholarly and intelligent, they preserve true simplicity with
the real grandeur of their conception,"
The Rev. William Hague, D. D. (1808-1887), in "Life
Notes; or Fifty Years' Outlook":
"The (Newark) 'Advertiser' yet lives and thrives, winning to
its service the contributions of scholarly writers, among whom we
have noticed, occasionally, the veteran physician and poet, Dr.
Abraham Coles, author of 'The Evangel' with its immense wealth
of critical scholasticism; and the tasteful and rhythmic translator of
Latin poetry that enriches our libraries, for instance, in the artistic-
ally wrought edition of the ' Dies Irae.'"
The "Newark Daily Advertiser":
" ' The Microcosm' is the only book of the kind in the language,
and is well deserving of a place in every library, and might, we
think, moreover, be introduced with advantage into all sc/ioo/s v/here
physiology is taught as an adjunct, if nothing else, to stimulate inter-
est, and relieve the dryness of ordinary text books. In lines of
flowing and easy verse, the author sets forth with a completeness
certainly remarkable, and with great power and beauty the incom-
parable marvels of structure and function of the human body.
" This poetic mastery, making ductile the most unpromising ma-
terials, has had its latest and supreme exemplification in the com-
pletion of the unique work, 'The Life and Teachings of Our Lord,
in Verse.' 'The Evangel,' forming the first part, appeared in 1874,
'The Light of the World,' forming the second part and completing
the work, is now, 1884, first published. * * *
" By common consent the story of the life of Jesus, as told by
the four evangelists, is the unmatched masterpiece of literature.
Its literary interest is hardly inferior to its religious. It is pre-emi
nently classic. The most fervid encomiums have come from infidels
and the great literary artists of the world. To taboo it, therefore,
as something outside of literature, betrays ignorance and imbecility.
Mr. Edwin Arnold has duly celebrated in his poem, 'The Light of
Asia,' the Buddhist hero, Prince Siddartha, and has had, it would
seem, readers among all classes. The life and teachings of Him
who is 'The Light of the World,' and whose fame fills the ages,
are surely not less worthy of regard and study by the cultiva-
tors of literature. The author has striven, it would seem, to make
his book a veritable cyclopjedia of religious knowledge, so compre-
hensive is its scope. It ranges through the Old Testament and the
New. An episode in the first part, outlines nearly the whole his-
tory of the Jewish people. The poetical proem and the note ap-
pended thereto are in efifective antagonism to Darwinism and cur-
rent evolution theories. An elaborate note on ' The Logos ' gives
an historical summary of the prevailing creeds and christologies
from the earliest times.
" It is not too much to say that it is a book deserving of a place
beside the New Testament in every household, and cannot fail to
be found a valuable help to every reader and student of the sacred
Scriptures."
The Rev. George Dana Boardman, D. D.:
"Philadelphia, Pa.
"My Dear Doctor Coles— Most happy do I count myself in
possessing 'The Light of the World.' It has all those same fine
characteristics which so richly mark 'The Evangel.' It must be a
source of supreme delight to the accomplished author that he has
been permitted to complete a work so lofty in design, and so admir-
able in execution."
Rev. Alfred Spencer Patton, D. D. (1825-1888), author^
editor of "The Baptist Weekly," etc.:
"Our good and gifted friend, Dr. Abraham Coles, has every
reason to be gratified with the highly complimentary notices by
the press, of his last work, 'The Light of the World,' it being the
second volume or completion of his life of Jesus, as told by the
evangelists."
The Hon. Joseph P. Bradley, LL. D., one of the
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States :
"Washington, D. C, Dec. 14, 1884.
"Dear Doctor — I have read nearly all of your beautiful book,
'The Life and Teachings of Our Lord, in Verse,' and like it better
the longer I read it. You had two rocks to avoid: on one side pro-
saic tameness, which might be incurred by too rigid an adherence to
the text; on the other rashness in attempting (even poetical) changes
of consecrated forms of expression — changes which no English or
American ear would endure. I appreciate the difficulty of the task,,
and think you have performed it wonderfully well."
John G. Whittier :
"Amesbury, Mass., January, 1885.
" 'The Light of the World' I have read with interest. Thy
poetical version of the wonderful narrative seems to be conscien-
tiously faithful to the original, while at the same time it success-
fully interprets some passages which are not clear to the ordinary
reader. It will be a helpful book to many, who will realize, for the
first time, the true meaning and significance of the Lord's words.
I am, with high respect and esteem, thy friend."
The Right Honorable John Bright, M. P., iingland :
" 132 Picadilly, London, April 30, 1885.
" Dear Dr. Coles — When I began to read your volume on 'The
Life and Teachings of Christ in Verse,' I thought you had attempted
to gild the refined gold, and would fail — as I proceeded in my read-
ing that idea gradually disappeared, and I discovered that you had
brought the refined gold together in a manner convenient and useful
and deeply interesting. I have read the volume with all its notes,
many of which seem to me of great value. I could envy you the
learning and the industry that have enabled you to produce this
remarkable work. I hope it may have many readers in all countries
where our language is spoken."
The Rev. Henry Griggs Weston, D. D., author and
editor. President of the Crozer Theological Seminary,
Chester, Pennsylvania:
" Your work, 'The Life and Teachings of Our Lord,' is one of
the gratifying fruits of the study which the Gospels have received
since I first began to inquire for helps to their understanding."
Tile Rev. Horatius Bonar, D. D.:
" 10 Palmerston Road, Grange, Edinburgh.
H: * * * " I am struck with your command of language, and
your skill in clothing the simplicities of history with the elegance of
poetry. It (' The Life and Teachings of Our Lord in Verse') is no
ordinary volume, and your notes are of a very high order indeed —
admirably written, and full of philosophical thought and Scriptural
research."
The Rev. Alexander McLaren, D. D.:
" Manchester, Eng., Nov. 3, 1885.
"Dear Sir — I congratulate you on having accomplished vrith such
success a most difficult undertaking; and on having been able to
present the inexhaustible life in a form so new and original. I do
not know whether I have been most struck by the careful and fine
exegetical study, or the graceful versification of your work. I trust
it ('The Life and Teachings of Our Lord in Verse') may be use-
ful, not only in attracting the people, which George Herbert thought
could be caught with a song, when they would run from a ser-
mon, but may also help lovers of the sermon to see its subject in a
new garb."
Adele M. Fielde, missionary at Swatow, China :
" Those whose judgment is of value have given Dr. Coles' trans-
lations of the Latin hymns such high praise, that words of commend-
ation from me would appear presumptuous. I am glad, for the
world's sake, that the wonderful Latin hymns were written, and that
Dr. Coles has so translated them, and I am glad for my own sake
that I have them to read. * * * * j think Dr. Coles has done
an excellent thing for us in his ' Life and Teachings of Our Lord.' "
Elizabeth Clementine Kinney, author and poet, wife
of Hon. William Burnet Kinney; and, by her first
husband, Edmund B. Stedman, the mother of Edmund
Clarence Stedman, the distinguished poet and critic :
"Dr. Coles long ago established a high reputation in both worlds,
by his matchless translations of that famous old judgment hymn,
the 'Dies Irse,' and of mediaeval hym.ns, published under the title of
' Old Gems in New Settings ; ' also by his unique original poem.
■' The Microcosm,' which has glorified by immortal verse this mortal
body, so fearfully and wonderfully made that every part harmonizes
with the poet's song. In 'The Evangel' and 'The Light of the
World,' already noticed by 'The Observer,' while conscientiously
adhering to the sacred text, Dr. Coles' frequent elaborate notes give
freedom to some original suggestions growing out of the author's
fifty years' devout study of the Bible. It will be well to heed any
proposition brought forward by one who has been so long a reverent
student as to have become a profound thinker, and thus an able
teacher of the divine word. Every thought or idea advanced by
Dr. Coles will, doubtless, on thorough, unprejudiced investigation,
be found supported by a reasonable interpretation of Scripture.
Between the acts of this sacred drama there are also some hymnal
excursions, which show the height and depth, the color and light,
the melody and ecstasy, of the true Christian poet. Through his
many works, one noble aim. is ever apparent, viz.: to 'crown Him
Lord of all ' who is ' the author and finisher of our faith ' and ' the
giver of every good and perfect gift.' Noticeable, too, through all,
is progression, in respect of enlargement by study and thought ;
of advancement with advancing years, keeping pace with the age
in increasing light so far as it develops heavenly truth, and
original conception through truth."
"The Book Buyer," Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York:
" 'The Hebrew Psalms in English Verse.' By Abraham Coles.
M. D.. LL.D. Dr. Coles has won praise from some of the most
eminent of critics for his translations into English of the ' Dies
Irae,' the characteristics of the work being faithfulness to the spirit
of the original, combined with a command of rich and rythmic Eng-
lish. His tastes have led him to translate the great Hebrew classic
into English verse, a task of unusual difficulty which many have
undertaken, but ia which few have attained even partial success.
Dr. Coles's work will attract wide attention by reason of its lofty reli-
gious spirit, its admirable reflection of the incomparably fine flavor
of the original, its dignified, stately diction and the scholarly care
bestowed upon every line. The book, moreover, has an additional
value in the prefatory matter which includes an essay on the char-
acter of the Psalms, a detailed account of the French, English and
Scotch metrical versions of the Psalms and a chapter of interesting
notes, critical, historical and biographical. An admirable steel
portrait of Dr. Coles serves as a frontispiece to the book."
Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D., LL. D.:
" Dear Dr. Coles — Your volume on the Psalms is a noble work,
and the introduction is rich and sweet as a honeycomb. Two Sab-
baths ago I gave out from my pulpit your fine hymn, ' Lo, I am with
you all the days.' and told the congregation some things about the
author. * * * * You will be quite at home up among heaven's
choir of psalmists and chosen singers."
The " New York Tribune ":
" 'A New Rendering of the Hebrew Psalms into English Verse,
with Notes, Critical, Historical and Biographical, including an
Historical Sketch of the French, English and Scotch Metrical
Versions,' by Dr. Abraham Coles. Dr. Coles' name on the
title-page is a sufficient indication of the excellence and thorough-
ness of the work done. Indeed, Dr. Coles has done much more
than produce a fresh, vigorous and harmonious version of the
Psalms, though this was alone well worth doing. His full and schol-
arly notes on the early versions of Clement Marot, Sternhold and
Hopkins and others, his sketches of eminent persons connected in
various ways with particular psalms, his literary and bibliographical
information, together impart a value and interest to this work
which should insure an extensive circulation for it. Very much of
the historical and other matter thus brought within the reach of the
public is inaccessible to such as have not means of access to public
libraries, and there is certainly no Christian household in the coun-
try which would not find both pleasure and instruction in Dr.
Coles' compendious and altogether unique volume. It may be
added that in his version of the Psalms he has wisely preserved the
rhythmical swing and the terse language which distinguish the early
renderings, and that therefore those who have been reared on the
old versions need not fear finding their favorites changed ' out of
knowledge.' "
The Rev. Frederic W. Farrar, D. D., F. R. S., Chap-
lain in Ordinary to the Queen, author of the " Life of
Christ," etc., in a letter to Dr. Coles :
" 17, Dean's Yard, Westminster, S. W.
"The task of versifying the Psalms was too much even for
Milton, but you have attempted it with seriousness and with as
much success as seems to be possible. I was much interested in
your introduction."
The Rev. A. H. Tuttle, D. D., pastor of the First
Methodist Episcopal Church, Wilkesbarre, Pa.:
" 'The Life and Teachings of Our Lord, in verse,' has greatly
aided me in my efforts to interpret heavenly things. I am glad you
have lived to complete your versification of the Psalms. I am now
making a protracted and careful study of the old Hebrew Hymn
Book, and your work will be of untold help to me. I have already
read my favorite psalms as you sing them. They are rich beyond
expression."
The Rev. Charles S. Robinson, D. D.:
"I have read many of your really excellent versions of the
Psalms. It seems to me you have added richly to our available
literature in that direction. I have been specially interested, also,
in the prefaced notes. Some of the information is quite new to me,
and the comments are all good and helpful."
Hon. George Hay Stuart, the eminent philanthropist
in January, 1888, wrote from Philadelphia :
"'The New Rendering of the Hebrew Psalms into English
Verse,' I prize very much. It is exceedingly good and very suggest
ive. The subject matter is of peculiar interest tome. I have been
brought up, as perhaps you know, in old Rouse's version of the
Psalms, but never held the view, that many do, that nothing else can
be sung in the praise of God. Our own congregation, up to recently,
used nothing but that version. Now we have so far advanced that
we sing, also, hymns and spiritual songs. * * * * Xhe United
Presbyterian Assembly has recently adopted a new version of the
Psalms, but I think their leading men ought to see this version."
The Rev. D. R. Frazer, D. D., pastor of the First
Presbyterian Church, of Newark, N. J.:
" My Dear Dr. Coles — I do not know that I can give any better
expression of my appreciation of your last work than to say that my
wife and I sat up until after midnight, reading psalm after psalm
with very great delight. The versification is beautiful, and its beauty
intensifies by its fidelity to the common version. Hoping the book
may do much good, in making manifest the beauties of one of the
most beautiful portions of the Word of God, I am, with great
respect, ever sincerely yours."
Charles M. Davis, Secretary of the American Institute
of Christian Philosophy, Superintendent of Public
Schools, Essex county, N. J., etc.:
" Dear Dr. Coles — During the past year I have been reading the
revised version of the Psalms, in connection with the received.
Your translations will be a help to me, as I do not understand
Hebrew. I have read your introduction very carefully, and find it
contains especially valuable information, as do, also, your occasional
notes. The psalms that I have read aloud in the family have been
greatly enjoyed, especially the 107th, 136th and 137th. We are
anticipating much pleasure from the continuance of this during the
winter evenings."
The Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D., editor of "The Outlook
and Sabbath Quarterly":
"I have been greatly interested in the book, not only in the
success which you have attained in versifying the Psalms, but in the
valuable matter embodied in the introduction. I have usually found
it difficult to interest myself in any versification of the Psalms,
especially in the early efforts by Watts and others. On opening
your volume, I found myself inclined to read in detail, rather than to
examine cursorily. It is very difficult to versify Hebrew poetry.
The success you have attained in expressing the delicate shades of
sentiment commands our congratulations, and may justly give you
abundant satisfaction."
S. W. Kershaw, F. S. A., author, librarian of the
Lambeth Palace Library, London, England, etc.:
"Lambeth Library, 12 June, 1888.
• < * * * * jj^ jjjjg library there is a fine collection of works
on the liturgies, prayer-book, etc. In your ' New Rendering of the
Hebrew Psalms Into English Verse,' I am greatly interested in the
introduction, in reading about the psalms of Clement Marot, and in
the allusion to the Huguenots. My little book on the ' Protestants
from France in their English home 'was kindly reviewed in one
of your papers. * * * * "
J. K. Hoyt, editor and author:
" Bay View, Florida.
"Dear Dr. Coles — I have passed a very pleasant Sunday morn-
ing in looking over your new book. I wish you had invoked the spirit
of Beethoven, and written the music as well as the words; for the
proper use of a metrical version of the Psalms is to sing them.
Still, the book is a wonderful one, and encourages me to believe that
age is not necessarily a bar to work. I enjoy the notes much,
and very often find myself turning from the essay to the verses
referred to. You will leave a melodious monument behind you, my
good Doctor."
The Rev. George Dana Boardman, D. D.:
" My Dear Dr. Coles — I greatly admire your new book for many
reasons : first, for its rich introduction, felicitously describing the
character of the Psalms, giving us an exhaustive history of metrical
versions, presenting critical, historical and biographical notes of great
value ; secondly, for your new rendering of the Psalms, a rendering
conscientious, mellifluous, fresh and suggestive; thirdly, and not least,
for the frontispiece, representing one who has both the David spirit
and the David music. Faithfully yours."
The Rev. Lewis R. Dunn, D. D.:
" I like the 'rhythmic flow' of the words of your work, its truths,
its thorough orthodoxy, its blending of the results of most recent
scholarship in lines and notes, its beautiful illustrations of the text,
and its high intellectual and spiritual tone — a classic in our good
old English tongue."
Asahel Clark Kendrick, D. D., LL. D., author, Pro-
fessor of Hebrew, Greek and Latin in the University of
Rochester, New York :
" In your translation of the Hebrew Psalms into English verse,
you may well be congratulated in having thus nobly crowned
your series of poems devoted to those themes, which aid the aspir-
ations of the soul upward toward God and heaven, and may well
task the highest human efforts. The renderings are in clear
and weighty verse, fitted to the noble simplicity of the original ; and
the notes are instructive and valuable."
George MacDonaid, author and poet :
"London, England.
" My DEAR Doctor Coles. — I send you by this post a copy of
my little book on the religious poetry of England. I am sure you
will find a good deal to sympathize with in it. * * * I am sorry
to say I have not yet received your book, which I should like much
to see after the taste you gave me, sheltered and ministered unto
by you and yours. Let me hope I may once more be your guest,
and that you may be ours. Believe in my love and gratitude.
Yours, with sincere affection."
The Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D., LL. D., in " Literature
and Poetry," Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1890:
"A physician, Abraham Coles, prepared between 1847 and 1859
thirteen versions (of the ' Dies Irse '), six of which are in the trochaic
measure and double rhyme of the original, five in the same rhythm,
but in single rhyme, one in iambic triplets, like Roscommon's, the
last in quatrains, like Crashaw's version. Two appeared anony-
mously in the Newark ' Daily Advertiser,' the first one in 1847,
and a part of it found its way into Mrs. Stowe's ' Uncle Tom's
Cabin;' subsequently this version was set to music in Henry
Ward Beecher's ' Plymouth Collection of Hymns and Tunes.'
The thirteen versions were first published together with an in-
troduction in 1859. He has since published three additional ver-
sions in double rhyme, New York, i88r, in 'The Microcosm and
Other Poems.' In August, 1889, he made one more version in
single rhyme and four lines. These seventeen versions show a
rare fertility and versatility, and illustrate the possibilities of
variation, without altering the sense. Dr. Coles, in the eleventh
stanza of his first translation of 1847, had anticipated Irons,
Peries, and Dix:
" ' Righteous Judge of retribution,
Make me gift of absolution
Ere that day of execution.'
* * * "Dr. Abraham Coles, of Scotch Plains, N. J., the suc-
cessful translator of ' Dies Irse,' and ' Stabat Mater," has reproduced,
but has not yet (1889), published, all the passion hymns of St.
Bernard."
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