IX.

Poenitentium, Maria,
Impetres, patrona pia,
Istam pro me veniam,

Ut a mortuis victorem
Tecum Dominum adorem

Valde mane obviam.

At the next recurrence of the Saint's feast in July 1895, the following version of the foregoing poem was contributed to the same newspaper by M. R.-of whom we know something more than the initials. For the convenience of comparing original and translation, we have resorted to the somewhat obsolete expedient of numbering the stanzas.

I.

O Mary Magdalen, what pain

Is this which smites your heart amain!

I see you full of woe,

Standing where Jesus hangs above,
Returning love for so great love,

While all His griefs you know.

II.

The nails into those feet they drave
Which with your tears you late did lave
And wiped them with your hair,
Whilst that divine beloved head
On which your precious nard was shed
The thorns so cruel tear.

III.

For that you much have loved, your sin
Will from God's love forgiveness win;
Guiltless for guilty slain,

Like to a golden lily flower

Which wanton hands may overpower

And scatter o'er the plain.

IV.

Again you choose the better part-
To nestle close to Jesus' Heart

And at His feet to lie;

But ah, how sad the change you meet!

Not Bethany's most blissful seat,

You stand the Cross anigh.

V.

When you at home received the Lord,
You heard the words of Him the Word;
But now the end is come,

And like a lamb too rudely shorn,

All mute unto the slaughter borne,
His lips divine are dumb.

VI.

He speaks the dying Thief is blest
To the Disciple loved the best

His Mother dear He lends,
And Him to Her He gives in turn.
You too for tender greeting yearn-
None from the Cross descends.

VII.

What grief is equal to your grief?
Whate'er of solace or relief

Was in your power you gave;
And now your Jesus parched with thirst,
Amid that mocking crew accursed,
You see and cannot save.

VIII.

He wept at your dear brother's death:
Himself like lot encompasseth,

And Life itself is dead.

He who woke Lazarus from the tomb,
Who burst the sepulchre's dark gloom,
To sepulchre is led.

IX.

O Mary, patroness most meek
Of penitents who pardon seek,

This grace for me implore-
With you at dawn the Lord to meet
O'er death victorious, at His feet
For ever to adore.

There have been translations that excelled their originals: for instance, I think, some of Father Prout's from the French, and some of Clarence Mangan's from the German. But generally translations give only a faint idea of the original poem; and this makes it more remarkable that so many of the Latin hymns of the Church are very effective even in English. One of the first of these

that children used to learn by heart is the Ambrosian hymn of Compline, as given in the night prayers of many old prayer-books, beginning thus:

Before the closing of the day,
Creator, we Thee humbly pray
That for thy wonted mercy's sake

Thou us into protection take.

the

This inversion of the pronouns is very stiff and awkward; but an anonymous writer in The English Messenger of the Sacred Heart (1869) very properly thought that he could not improve upon first line as a translation of Te lucis ante terminum. adopts, and changes all the rest :

Before the closing of the day,

O Thou, our Maker and our Lord!
For Thine own mercy's sake we pray

That o'er us Thou keep watch and ward.

Afar may dreams of evil flee,

And all the nightly phantom train ;

And hold in check our enemy

That so we may not suffer stain.

O Thou, our Father, hear our prayer,
Who, with the One-begotten Son,
And Holy Ghost the Comforter,

Dost reign while endless ages run.

This line he

"R.O.K.", whose initials will ensure the benevolent attention of many of our readers, sent us, too long ago, the following version of the same which has never before been in print. It does not aim at the scrupulous fidelty which has become the fashion with translators, especially of short poems.

Before the beauteous day is done,

Before the light its course hath run,

Look down, O Lord, from Heav'n we pray,

And bless us at the close of day.

Oh, bless our homes, and bless our rest,

No phantom wiles our sleep molest,

That, lulled in peace and purity,

Our dreams may be of heaven and Thee.

Great God, whose Word made all we see,
And giveth life to all that be,-
At holy twilight, free from blame,
May we for ever bless Thy Name.

Some unknown poet of the seventeenth century composed this impressive sonnet on La Mort du Christ,

Lorsque Jésus souffrait pour tout le genre humain
La Mort en l'abordant au fort de son supplice
Parut tout interdite et retira sa main,

N' osant pas sur son Maître exercer son office.

Mais le Christ, en baissant la tête sur son sein,
Fit signe à la terrible et sourde exécutrice,
Que, sans avoir égard aux droits du souverain,
Elle achevât sans peur le sanglant sacrifice.

L'implacable obéit, et ce coup sans pareil
Fit trembler la nature et pâlir le soleil,
Comme si de sa fin le monde eût été proche.

Tout gémit, tout frémit sur la terre et dans l'air,

Et le pécheur fut seul qui prit un cœur de roche,
Quand les roches semblaient avoir un cœur de chair!

I have made the following attempt at a fairly literal translation:

:

While Jesus suffered for man's sinful race,

Death, drawing near Him at His torment's height,
Shrank back appalled at the fearful sight,

Not daring on his Lord his hand to place.

But Jesus, bending down His meek, pale face,
To him, dread Executioner, gave sign
That, heedless of the Master's rights divine,
The bloody Sacrifice should speed apace.

Stern Death obeyed. The Saviour's parting cry
Made Nature tremble, sun grow dark on high,
As if the ending of the world were nigh.

On earth, in air, all shuddered and made moan-
While the stones seemed a heart of flesh to own,
The sinner only showed a heart of stone.

When Mr. Justice O'Hagan, as we mentioned a moment ago, sent his beautiful Dies Irae to this Magazine,-though Kottabos begged for it, he called it expressly "a new translation in the original metre," (IRISH MONTHLY, Vol. II., page 136), and he was somewhat disappointed to find that he had been forestalled by Philip Stanhope Worsly, who had published in Blackwood's Magazine, of May, 1860, an excellent translation with the same trochaic metre and dissyllabic endings of the Latin hymn. Judge