Hymns of the Early Church / being translations from the poetry of the Latin church, arranged in the order of the Christian year

Death and Judgment

GRAVI ME TERRORE PULSAS

By Peter Damiani. Born at Ravenna about 988; became a “religious” of the order of the Monks of the Holy Cross of Fontavellano, of which community he subsequently became the Superior, founding in his day five monasteries under the same rule; was induced by Pope Stephen IX. to accept the position of Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, an office he was allowed to resign by Pope Alexander II. in 1062. In retirement he lived a life of great asceticism and self-mortification. On his return journey from Ravenna, whither he had gone as Papal legate on a mission of inquiry and reform, he died of fever at Faenza, in the monastery of Our Lady, 1072.

I

Terror grim the soul oppresses

When the day of death is near;

Sighs the heart, the reins are sundered,

Quakes each part with anxious fear;

While the mind the woe detaileth

Of the conflict to appear.

II

Spectacle all woe inspiring

Who its terror can pourtray?

See, the course of life is ended,

And the sickening flesh gives way,

For the wrestling soul in triumph

Breaks the bands that bid her stay.

III

Sense decays, and fails expression;

Dark the world to melting eye;

And the troubled breast in anguish,

Gasping, breathes her burdened sigh;

Grace of form and glow of beauty,

From the withering body die.

IV

Thoughts, and words, and deeds forgotten,

Crowd around in grim array;

And unwilling eyes behold them,

Be they closed or turned away;

In the heart they seem to rankle,

Turn he wheresoe’er he may.

V

Vain the vow of new obedience—

Time for vowing is no more;

Vain the sorrow of repentance,

For the day of grace is o’er;

Conscience now the tortured sinner

Gnaws with pangs unfelt before.

VI

Draughts of sweet deluding pleasure

Give the bitter dregs at last;

Come, unending pain and anguish,

With the short-lived rapture past;

Then, what once appeared so worthy,

Is aside as worthless cast.

VII

Then, O Christ, Thou King victorious,

Come with succour in my plight;

When the soul is freed from bondage,

In its hour of darkest night;

Come, O Christ, Thy help extending,

Free me from the accuser’s might.

VIII

Headlong may the Prince of Darkness

With the hosts infernal fall!

Thou, the Shepherd of Salvation,

Bid me follow at Thy call,

To the land where fulness dwelleth,

And those eyes shall see it all.

APPROPINQUAT ENIM DIES IN QUA JUSTES ERIT QUIES

A cento taken from the hymn, Heu! Heu! mala mundi vita, published by Du MÉvil in 1847, from a MS. of the twelfth century, in the National Library at Paris. The poem from which the cento is taken consists of nearly four hundred lines, and the cento begins at line 325.

I

Lo, the day, the day approacheth

When the just shall rest in peace,

When the patient souls shall triumph,

And the vile from troubling cease.

II

Day of life, who can abide it?

Day of light, unseen before;

Death, the fell destroyer, dieth,

Night and darkness are no more.

III

See He comes whom ages longed for—

Long expected King of kings—

Now He tarries not, and with Him

All His great salvation brings.

IV

O how blessed! O how joyful!

O what sweetness it shall be!

When the eyes of those who loved Him

Shall their Lord and Master see.

V

Jesus then with sweet affection,

And in tones of tenderest love,

Shall invite His faithful people

To the joys prepared above.

VI

“Ye who held My truth unsullied,

Faithful stood in world of sin,

Suffered for the name ye honoured,

See the joys ye sought to win.

VII

“See the heavenly kingdom promised,

Long reserved, but now revealed;

Now behold it, now possess it,

Now the princely sceptre wield.”

VIII

O how sweet our earthly losses,

In the midst of gain like this!

O how vain the world’s possessions,

At the cost of so much bliss!

IX

O how blessÈd then the mourners,

Who for Christ earth’s sorrow bore,

By a scornful world neglected!

They shall reign for evermore.

X

Now no terror grim shall haunt them—

Tears and sorrows are no more;

Grinding want shall ne’er afflict them,

Crippled age nor weakness sore.

XI

Peace eternal there abideth,

Hearts with festive gladness bound;

There is youth with perfect vigour,

And with bloom unfading crowned.

XII

O just Judge! in boundless mercy

Call me heavenward by-and-by,

For my soul is faint with longing,

And I wait with tearful eye.

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