THAT GREAT DAY OF WRATH.

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however inferior in lyric fervor and effect, it scarcely yields in devotion and simple realization of its subject." DANIEL and TRENCH likewise put it on a par with the Dies Ira as to simplicity and faith, but below it in majesty and terror. Both breathe the mediæval spirit of legalistic, rather than of joyous evangelic, piety. This poem is more narrative than lyrical. The Latin is alphabetic and acrostical, every other line following the alphabet in the first letter, — an artificial arrangement for the eye rather than the ear, borrowed from Ps. cxix. and the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Other versions by Mrs. CHARLES, and E. C. BENEDICT.

THAT great Day of wrath and terror,

That last Day of woe and doom,

Like a thief at darkest midnight,
On the sons of men shall come;
When the pride and pomp of ages
All shall utterly have passed,
And they stand in anguish, owning
That the end is here at last.

Then the trumpet's pealing clangor,
Through the earth's four quarters spread.

Waxing loud and ever louder,

Shall convoke the quick and dead;
And the King of heavenly glory
Shall assume His throne on high,
And the cohorts of His angels
Shall be near Him in the sky.
Then the sun shall turn to darkness,1

And the moon be red as blood;

And the stars shall fall from heaven,

1 Neale translates "shall turn to sackcloth," which is an im proper figure, and not implied in the original :

"Erubescit orbis lunæ, sol vel obscurabitur."

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Whelmed beneath destruction's flood.
Flame and fire and desolation
At the Judge's feet shall go:
Earth and sea and all abysses
Shall His mighty sentence know.

Then th' elect upon the right hand
Of the Lord shall stand around;
But, like goats, the evil-doers
Shall upon the left be found.

"Come, ye Blessed, take the kingdom,"
Shall be there the King's award,
"Which for you, before the world was,
Of My Father was prepared:

I was naked, and ye clothed Me,
Poor, and ye relieved Me; hence,
Take the riches of My glory

For your endless recompense."

Then the righteous shall make question :
"When have we beheld Thee poor,
Lord of glory? When relieved Thee
Lying needy at our door?"

Whom the Blessed King shall answer:

"When ye showed your charity,

Giving bread and home and raiment,
What ye did was done to Me."
In like manner, to the left hand
That most righteous Judge shall say,
"Go, ye cursed, to Gehenna,

THAT GREAT DAY OF WRATH.

And the fire that is for aye:

For in prison ye came not nigh Me;
Poor, ye pitied not My lot;

Naked, ye have never clothed Me;

Sick, ye visited Me not."

They shall say: "O Christ! when saw we

That Thou calledst for our aid,

And in prison, or sick or hungry,

To relieve have we delayed?"

Whom again the Judge shall answer :

"Since ye never cast your eyes

On the sick and poor and needy,

It was Me ye did despise."

Backward, backward, at the sentence,
To Gehenna they shall fly,
Where the flame is never-ending,
Where the worm can never die;
Where are Satan and his angels
In profoundest dungeon bound;
Where are chains and lamentation,
Where are quenchless flames around.

But the righteous, upward soaring,

To the heavenly land shall go,
Midst the cohorts of the angels,
Where is joy for evermo:
To Jerusalem, exulting,

They with shouts shall enter in ;

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That true "sight of peace" and glory
That sets free from grief and sin.
Christ shall they behold for ever,
Seated at the Father's hand,

As in Beatific Vision

His elect before Him stand.

Wherefore man, while yet thou mayest,
From the dragon's malice fly :1
Give thy bread to feed the hungry,
If thou seek'st to win the sky;
Let Thy loins be straitly girded,
Life be pure, and heart be right;
At the coming of the Bridegroom,
That thy lamp may glitter bright.

DAY OF WRATH! THAT DAY FORETOLD. (Dies ira, dies illa.)

The DIES IRA (DANIEL, II. p. 103; TRENCH, p. 293, &c). An act of humiliation, and prayer for mercy, in view of the impending Day of judgment, based upon Zeph. i. 15, 16; Matt. xxv.; 2 Pet. iii. 10-12, &c. Written, in a lonely monastic cell, about 1250, by THOMAS OF CELANO, the friend and biographer of St. Francis of Assisi. This marvellous hymn is the acknowledged masterpiece of Latin poetry, and the most sublime of all uninspired hymns, often translated, reproduced, and imitated, but never equalled. It is one of those rare productions which can never die, but increase

1 "Ydri [= Hydri, from úðpós] fraudes ergo cave," refers to the old serpent” (ô ðps ở ip cos), as Satan is called, Rev. xi. 9, 14; xx. 2, with reference to the history of temptation, Gen. iii

I. 4.

DAY OF WRATH! THAT DAY FORETold. 373

in value as the ages advance. It has commanded the admiration of secular poets, and men of letters, like Goethe, Walter Scott, and Macaulay, and has inspired some of the greatest musicians, from Palestrina down to Mozart. The secret of the irresistible power of the Dies Ira lies in the awful grandeur of the theme, the intense earnestness and pathos of the poet, the simple majesty and solemn music of its language, the stately metre, the triple rhyme, and the vowel assonances chosen in striking adaptation. to the sense, all combining to produce an overwhelming effect, as if we heard the final crash of the universe, the commotion of the opening graves, the trumpet of the archangel summoning the quick and the dead, and saw the "King of tremendous majesty❞ seated on the throne of justice and mercy, and ready to dispense everlasting life or everlasting woe. Goethe describes its effect upon the guilty conscience, in the cathedral-scene of Faust:

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The opening line, which is literally borrowed from the Vulgate version of Zeph. 1. 15 (as the Stabat Mater likewise opens with a Scripture sentence, John xix. 25) strikes the key-note to the whole with a startling sound, and brings up at once the judgmentscene as an awful, impending reality. The feeling of terror occasioned by the contemplation of that event culminates in the cry of repentance, ver. 7: "Quid sum, miser, tunc dicturus," &c.; but from this the poet rises at once to the prayer of faith, and takes refuge from the wrath to come in the infinite mercy of Him who suffered nameless pain for a guilty world, who pardoned the sinful Magdalene, and saved the dying robber. -For further information, see Lisco's Dies Ira, Berlin, 1840; and Dr. SCHAFF's chapter on the Dies Iræ in his Literature and Poetry (pp. 134-186). Dr. ABRAHAM COLES made seventeen versions (1847-1889). See his Dies Ira, N. Y. 1866, etc. The following is a new version, offered with a lively sense of the untranslatableness of the poem.

DAY of wrath! that Day foretold,

By the saints and seers of old,

Shall the world in flames infold.1

1 A more literal version:

"Day of wrath, that woful Day,

Shall the world in ashes lay:
David and the Sibyl say."

But the mythical Sibyl, which, as the representative of the unconscious prophecies of heathendom, is here placed alongside