The poet has retained the sound-form used in the Prayer-books, and he shows his musical taste by not changing it. ↩
Gerontius concentrates all his vitality. The effect is of nervous energy. The time is quickened and alternately slowed. ↩
The Assistants begin with the solemn chant of the Church, and change to the supplication of anxious human hearts:
or
This is the ecstasy of faith, hope, and love. It is three Acts in one, rapidly and forcibly expressed. The energy and strength of self-forgetfulness fail when he, still in the body, sighs:
“I can no more; for now it comes again,”—
Note the musical effect of
“And, crueller still,
A fierce and restless fright begins to fill
The mansion of my soul. And, worse and worse,
Some bodily form of ill.”
The pauses after “ill” express horror and weakness—
Holy Strong One, Holy God,
From the depth I pray to Thee.
Mercy, O my Judge, for me;
Spare me, Lord.
In the Proper for the season of Good Friday the passage which suggested this reads, in Greek and Latin:
| 1st choir. | Agios O Theos | (O Holy God). |
| 2nd choir. | Sanctus Deus | (O Holy God). |
| 1st choir. | Agios Ischyros | (O Holy Strong One). |
| 2nd choir. | Sanctus Fortis | (O Holy Strong One). |
Death dissolves me. ↩
The solemn chant again. Note the difference in metre between this and the “Novissima hora est; and I fain would sleep. The pain has wearied me.” Note the ardor of the Priest’s “Proficiscere, anima Christiana,” etc. ↩
The final hour is here. “Into Thy hands.” The whole of this prayer for the dying is: “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. O Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Holy Mary, pray for me. O Mary, Mother of grace, Mother of mercy, do thou protect me from the enemy and receive me at the hour of death.” ↩
“Go forth, O Christian soul, from this world.” These words begin the prayer of the priest, recited while the soul is departing from the body. It is paraphrased in English by the Cardinal. ↩
The soul of Gerontius has left the body:
According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, each soul is given at its birth in charge of a Guardian Angel. It is this angel that sings, “My work is done.” “Alleluia” is from two Hebrew words united by a hyphen. It means “Praise the Lord.” St. John in the Apocalypse says that he heard the angels singing it in heaven. It occurs in the last five Psalms and in Tobias. ↩
“My work is done,
My task is o’er,”
is expressed with a joyous movement—
Compare the thought in Hamlet—Act II, Scene II—“What a piece of work is man!” ↩
When the soul has departed, the priest says the prayer beginning “Subvenite, Sancti Dei; occurrite Angeli Domini,” etc. (“Come to his assistance, ye saints of God,” etc.). ↩
The most marked change comes here. The solemnity and sweetness of the soul and the angel’s music—their leitmotif—is easily discernible. Now come dissonances and discords—the rapidity of jangled cymbals struck in scorn. The phrase “chucked down” has been censured as “inelegant.” Its meaning and sound accord exactly with the spirit of the demoniac chorus. ↩
“Extension,” “the position of parts outside parts.” See p. 366, General Metaphysics, by John Rickaby, S.J., Manuals of Catholic Philosophy. ↩
St. Francis d’Assisi. In 1224,
