DIES IRE, DIES ILLA.
In Meditation of the Day of Judgment.
HEAR'ST thou, my soul, what serious things
Both the Psalm and Sybil sings,
Of a sure Judge, from whose sharp ray
The world in flames shall pass away?
O that fire! before whose face
Heav'n and earth shall find no place.
O those eyes, whose angry light
Must be the day of that dread night !
O that trump! whose blast shall run
An even round with the circling sun,
And urge the murm'ring graves to bring,
Pale mankind forth to meet his King.
Horror of nature, Hell and Death!
When a deep groan from beneath
Shall cry,
"We come, we come," and all
The caves of night answer one call.
O, when Thy last frown shall proclaim
The flocks of goats to folds of flame,
And all Thy lost sheep found shall be,
Let "Come ye blessed" then call me.
When the dread 'Ite' shall divide
Those limbs of death from Thy left side,
Let those life-speaking lips command
That I inherit Thy right hand.
Quantus tremor est futurus,
Quando Judex est venturus,
Cuncta strictè discussurus!
Tuba mirum spargens sonum,
Per sepulcra regionum
Coget omnes ante thronum.
Mors stupebit, et natura,
Cum resurget creatura
Judicanti responsura.
Liber scriptus proferetur,
In quo totum continetur,
Unde mundus judicetur.
O hear a suppliant heart, all crush'd
And crumbled into contrite dust:
My Hope, my Fear, my Judge, my Friend-
Take charge of me, and of my end.
The last two lines, slightly altered, were pronounced by Roscommon in the moment of death, with great energy and devotion.
The exquisite pathos of the 137th Psalm, has been moulded into numerous forms, some of them very beautiful; and Crashaw's attempt is not the least successful. He touched the harp of sorrow with a brotherly feeling:On the proud banks of great Euphrates' flood, There we sate, and there we wept: Our harps that now no music understood, Nodding on the willows, slept,
While unhappy, captiv'd we,
Lovely Sion, thought on thee.
They, they that snatcht us from our country's breast
Would have a song carv'd to their ears,
In Hebrew numbers, then (O cruel jest!)
When harps and hearts were drown'd in tears:
"Come," they cry'd, "come, sing and play
One of Sion's songs to day."
Sing! Play! To whom (ah) shall we sing or play
If not, Jerusalem, to thee?
To thee Jerusalem! Ah, sooner may
This hand forget the mastery
Of Music's dainty touch, than I
The music of thy memory.
Which when I lose, O may at once my tongue
Lose this same busy speaking art,
Unparch'd, her vocal arteries unstrung,
No more acquainted with my heart,
On my dry palate's roof to rest,
A wither'd leaf, an idle guest.
The observations I have ventured to make upon the version from Marino, apply with greater force to Music's Duell. "Crashaw's Musical Duell," says Lauder, "the best poem in the collection, is translated from Strada, the
Jesuit, without the least distant hint that it was so*." The want of any acknowledgement to Strada may be explained by the author's absence in a foreign land, and the publication of the poems by a friend. But as this poem must be deemed one of the most remarkable in the language, for its felicity of diction and pictorial effect, it will be worth while to inquire the precise obligations of Crashaw to the Jesuit. Strada's versatility of talent has extorted praise from Tiraboschi, but as a poet he failed, from having no manner of his own. Of his imitations, that of Claudian is the most happy :
Now westward Sol had spent the richest beams+
Of noon's high glory, when hard by the streams
Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat,
Under protection of an oak, there sat
A sweet lute's master, in whose gentle airs,
He lost the day's heats, and his own hot cares.
Close in the covert of the leaves there stood
A nightingale, come from the neighbouring wood :
The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree,
Their muse, their siren,-harmless siren she!
There stood she listening, and did entertain
The music's soft report, and mould the same
In her own murmurs, that whatever mood
His curious fingers lent, her voice made good→→
The man perceives his rival.
Essay on Milton's Use of the Moderns, 1750, p. 160.
Jam Sol à medio pronus deflexerat orbe
Mitius, è radiis vibrans crinalibus ignem ;
Cum Fidicen, propter Tiberina fluenta, sonanti
Lenibat plectra curas, æstumque levabat,
Ilice defensus nigrâ scenâque virenti.
Audiit hunc hospes silvæ Philomela propinquæ
Musa loci, nemoris siren,-innoxia siren ;
Et prope succedens stetit abdita frondibus, alte
Accipiens sonitum, secumque remurmurat, et quos
Ille modos variat digitis, hæc gutture reddit.
Sensit se Fidicen Philomela imitante referri,
Et placuit ludum volucri dare; plenius ergo
Explorat citharam, tentamentumque futuræ
Præbeat ut pugnæ, percussit protinus omnes
Impulsu pernice fides-nec segniusjilla,
Mille per excurrens variæ discrimina vocis,
Awakes his lute, and 'gainst the fight to come
Informs it in a sweet præludium
Of closer strains, and, ere the war begin,
He lightly skirmishes on every string,
Charged with a flying touch: and straightway she
Carves out her dainty voice as readily-
His nimble hands instinct, then taught each string
A cap'ring cheerfulness, and made them sing
To their own dance; now negligently rash
He throws his arm, and with a long-drawn dash
Blends all together, then distinctly trips
From this to that, then quick returning skips
And snatches this again, and pauses there.
She measures every measure, everywhere
Meets art with art; sometimes, as if in doubt,
Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out,
Trails her plain ditty in one low-spun note,
Through the sleek passage of her open throat:
A clear unwrinkled song; then does she point it
With tender accents, and severely joint it
By short diminutives, that being rear'd
In controverting warbles evenly shar'd,
With her sweet self she wrangles. He amazed
That from so small a channel should be raised
The torrent of a voice, whose melody
Could melt into such sweet variety,
Strains higher yet, that tickled with rare art
The tattling strings (each breathing in his part)
Most kindly do fall out; the grumbling base
In surly groans disdains the treble's grace;
The high-percht treble chirps at this, and chides,
Until his finger (moderator) hides
And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all,
Hoarse, shrill at once; as when the trumpets call
Venturi specimen præfert argutula cantus. Tunc Fidicen per fila movens trepidantia dextram, Nunc contemnenti similis diverberat ungue, Depectitque pari chordas, et simplice ductu: Nunc carptim replicat, digitisque micantibus urget Fila minutatim, celerique repercutit ictu. Mox silet. Illa modis totidem respondet, et artem Arte refert. Nunc seu rudis, aut incerta canendi Projicit in longum, nulloque plicatile flexu Carmen init, simili serie, jugique tenore, Præbet iter liquidum labenti e pectore voce; Nunc cæsim variat, modulisque canora minutis. VOL. I.
Hot Mars to the harvest of Death's field, and woo
Men's hearts into their hands. This lesson, too,
She gives him back; her supple breast thrills out
Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt
Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill,
And folds in waved notes, with a trembling bill,
The pliant series of her slippery song;
Then starts she suddenly into a throng
Of short thick sobs, whose thund'ring volleys float,
And roll themselves over her lubric throat
She opes the flood-gate, and lets loose a tide
Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride
On the way'd back of every swelling strain,
Rising and falling in a pompous train;
And while she thus discharges a shrill peal
Of flashing airs, she qualifies their zeal
With the cool epode of a graver note,
Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat
Would reach the brazen voice of war's hoarse bird
Shame now and anger mixed a double stain
In the Musician's face-
His hands sprightly as fire he flings,
And with a quavering coyness tastes the strings:
The sweet-lipped sisters musically frighted,
Singing their fears, are fearfully delighted;
Trembling as when Apollo's golden hairs
Are fann'd and frizzled in the wanton airs
Of his own breath, which married to his lyre,
Doth tune the spheres and make heaven's self look higher.
From this to that, from that to this he flies,
Feels Music's pulse in all her arteries,
Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads,
His fingers struggle with the vocal threads*.
Delibrat vocem, tremuloque reciprocat ore.
Miratur Fidicen parvis è faucibus ire
Tam varium, tam dulce melos; majoraque tentans
Alternat mira arte fides; dum torquet acutas
Inciditque, graves operoso verbere pulsat,
Permiscetque simul certantia rauca sonoris,
Ceu resides in bella viros clangore lacessat.
Hoc etiam Philomela canit: dumque ore liquenti
*Pope writing to Cromwell, No. 11, 1710, quotes these four lines as being" very remarkable."
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