Verses on Various Occasions by John Henry Newman (ebooks online reader txt) 📕

naturally strike the “fainting soul.” “Be merciful” (“Propitius esto”), the assistants continue, still using parts of the Litany as versified by Cardinal Newman. ↩

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—

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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,