SEVENTH PHASE
ANGEL:
NOW let the golden prison open its gates,
Making sweet music, as each fold revolves
Upon its ready hinge. And ye great powers,
Angels of Purgatory, receive from me
My charge, a precious soul, until the day,
When, from all bond and forfeiture released,
I shall reclaim it for the courts of light.
SOULS IN PURGATORY:
1. LORD, Thou hast been our refuge: in every generation;
2. Before the hills were born, and the world was:
from age to age thou art God.
3. Bring us not, Lord, very low: for Thou hast said,
Come back again, ye sons of Adam.
4. A thousand years before Thine eyes are
but as yesterday: and as a watch of the night
which is come and gone.
5. The grass springs up in the morning:
at evening-tide it shrivels up and dies.
6. So we fail in Thine anger:
and in Thy wrath we are troubled.
7. Thou hast set our sins in Thy sight:
and our round of days in the light of Thy countenance.
8. Come back, O Lord! how long:
and be entreated for Thy servants.
9. In Thy morning we shall be filled with Thy mercy:
we shall rejoice and be in pleasure all our days.
10. We shall be glad according to the days ot our humiliation:
and the years in which we have seen evil.
11. Look, O Lord, upon Thy servants and on Thy work:
and direct their children.
12. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us:
and the work of our hands, establish Thou it.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son:
And to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now,
And ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
ANGEL:
SOFTLY and gently, dearly-ransomed soul,
In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,
And, o’er the penal waters, as they roll,
I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee.
And carefully I dip thee in the lake,
And thou, without a sob or a resistance,
Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take,
Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim distance.
Angels, to whom the willing task is given,
Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest;
And Masses on the earth and prayers in heaven,
Shall aid thee at the Throne of the most Highest.
Farewell, but not forever! Brother dear,
Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow;
Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,
And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.
Farewell! Farewell!
Souls
Lord, Thou hast been our refuge: in every generation;
Come back, O Lord! how long:
And be entreated for Thy servants.
Bring us not, Lord, very low: for Thou hast said,
Come back again, ye sons of Adam.
Amen.
Choir of Angelicals
Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise;
To us His elder race He gave to battle and to win,
Without the chastisement of pain, without the soil of sin.
Amen
THE END
(libretto: Cardinal John Henry Newman)
