in whitest garments deck’d;
And happy infants of the second birth:—
These, and all other plants of paradise,
Thoughts from above, and visions that are sure,
And providences past, and memories dear,
In much content hang o’er that mirror pure,
And recognize each other’s faces there,
And see a heaven on earth.
CLXXV
The Two Worlds
Unveil, O Lord, and on us shine
In glory and in grace;
This gaudy world grows pale before
The beauty of Thy face.
Till Thou art seen, it seems to be
A sort of fairy ground,
Where suns unsetting light the sky,
And flowers and fruits abound.
But when Thy keener, purer beam
Is pour’d upon our sight,
It loses all its power to charm,
And what was day is night.
Its noblest toils are then the scourge
Which made Thy blood to flow;
Its joys are but the treacherous thorns
Which circled round Thy brow.
And thus, when we renounce for Thee
Its restless aims and fears,
The tender memories of the past,
The hopes of coming years,
Poor is our sacrifice, whose eyes
Are lighted from above;
We offer what we cannot keep,
What we have ceased to love.
CLXXVI
St. Michael
(A Hymn.)
Thou champion high
Of Heaven’s imperial Bride,
For ever waiting on her eye,
Before her onward path, and at her side,
In war her guard secure, by night her ready guide!
To thee was given,
When those false angels rose
Against the Majesty of Heaven,
To hurl them down the steep, and on them close
The prison where they roam in hopeless unrepose.
Thee, Michael, thee,
When sight and breathing fail,
The disembodied soul shall see;
The pardon’d soul with solemn joy shall hail,
When holiest rites are spent, and tears no more avail.
And thou, at last,
When Time itself must die,
Shalt sound that dread and piercing blast,
To wake the dead, and rend the vaulted sky,
And summon all to meet the Omniscient Judge on high.
CLXXVII
Prologus in Phormionem
What Attic Terence wrote of old for Rome,
We in our northern accents lisp to-night;
What heathen Terence spoke to heathen ears,
We speak with Christian tongues to Christian men:
Doing the while this service to the Bard,
That the rare beauty of his classic wit
We by our pruning make more beautiful.
O happy art, which Terence never knew,
But they have learned, who aim in every thing
To choose the good, and pass the evil by!
These, as they pace the tangled path of life,
Cleanse from this earth its earthly dross away,
And clothe it with a pure supernal light.
Neighbours and friends, what I have more to say—
It is not much—concerns our actors here,
Fresh tender souls, and palpitating hearts,
Boys, who, tho’ boys, essay the parts of men,
And are the first within this Catholic fold
To represent a classic comedy.
Be kind—they strive with no inglorious aim;
Where they do well, applaud; and, if in aught
They shall come short, be mild and merciful.
Prologue enough; let Davus enter now,
And lend his ear, while Geta tells his tale.
CLXXVIII
The Dream of Gerontius
§ 1
Jesu, Maria—I am near to death,18
And Thou art calling me; I know it now—
Not by the token of this faltering breath,
This chill at heart, this dampness on my brow,
(Jesu, have mercy! Mary, pray for me!)—
’Tis this new feeling, never felt before,
(Be with me, Lord, in my extremity!)
That I am going, that I am no more.
’Tis this strange innermost abandonment,
(Lover of souls! great God! I look to Thee,)
This emptying out of each constituent
And natural force, by which I come to be.
Pray for me, O my friends; a visitant
Is knocking his dire summons at my door,
The like of whom, to scare me and to daunt,
Has never, never come to me before;
’Tis death—O loving friends, your prayers!—’tis he! …
As though my very being had given way,
As though I was no more a substance now,
And could fall back on nought to be my stay,
(Help, loving Lord! Thou my sole Refuge, Thou,)
And turn no whither, but must needs decay
And drop from out the universal frame
Into that shapeless, scopeless, blank abyss,
That utter nothingness, of which I came:
This is it that has come to pass in me;
O horror! this it is, my dearest, this;
So pray for me, my friends, who have not strength to pray.
Kyrie eleïson,19 Christe eleïson, Kyrie eleïson.
Holy Mary, pray for him.
All holy Angels, pray for him.
Choirs of the righteous, pray for him.
Holy Abraham, pray for him.
St. John Baptist, St. Joseph, pray for him.
St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Andrew, St. John,
All Apostles, all Evangelists, pray for him.
All holy Disciples of the Lord, pray for him.
All holy Innocents, pray for him.
All holy Martyrs, all holy Confessors,
All holy Hermits, all holy Virgins,
All ye Saints of God, pray for him.
Rouse thee,20 my fainting soul, and play the man;
And through such waning span
Of life and thought as still has to be trod,
Prepare to meet thy God.
And while the storm of that bewilderment
Is for a season spent,
And, ere afresh the ruin on thee fall,
Use well the interval.
Be merciful,21 be gracious; spare him, Lord.
Be merciful, be gracious; Lord, deliver him.
From the sins that are past;
From Thy frown and Thine ire;
From the perils of dying;
From any complying
With sin, or denying
His God, or relying
On self, at the last;
From the nethermost fire
From all that is evil;
From power of the devil;
Thy servant deliver,
For once and for ever.
By Thy birth, and by Thy Cross,
Rescue him from endless loss;
By Thy death and burial,
Save him from a final fall;
By Thy rising from the tomb,
By Thy mounting up above,
By the Spirit’s gracious love,
Save him in the day of doom.
Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,22
De profundis oro te,
Miserere, Judex meus,
