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THE CELESTIAL COUNTRY.

[The poem De Contemptu Mundi was written in dactylic hexameter Latin verse by Bernard de Morlaix, Monk of Cluni who lived in the earlier half of the twelfth century. It contained three thousand lines divided into three books. The poem commences:

Hora novissima, tempora pessima Sunt, vigilemus.

Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter

Ille supremus.

Imminet, imininet et mala terminet,

Equa coronet,

Recta remuneret, anxia liberet,

Ethera donet,

Auferat aspera duraque pondera

Mentes onuste

Sobria muniat, improba puniat, Utraque juste.

Which have been rendered:

Hours of the latest! times of the basest!
Our vigil before us!

Judgment eternal of Being supernal
Now hanging o'er us!

Evil to terminate, equity vindicate,

Cometh the Kingly;

Righteousness seeing, anxious hearts freeing,

Crowning each singly,

Bearing life's weariness, tasting life's bitterness,

Life as it must be

Th' righteous retaining, sinners arraigning,

Judging all justly.

The translation following is of a portion of the poem distinguished

by the sub-title "LAUS PATRIÆ CŒLESTIS."

THE world is very evil,

The times are waxing late;

Be sober and keep vigil,

The Judge is at the gate, The Judge that comes in mercy, The Judge that comes with might, To terminate the evil,

To diadem the right. When the just and gentle Monarch Shall summon from the tomb, Let man, the guilty, tremble, For Man, the God, shall doom!

Arise, arise, good Christian,

Let right to wrong succeed; Let penitential sorrow

To heavenly gladness lead, To the light that hath no evening, That knows nor moon nor sun,

The light so new and golden, The light that is but one.

And when the Sole-Begotten Shall render up once more The kingdom to the FATHER, Whose own it was before, Then glory yet unheard of Shall shed abroad its ray, Resolving all enigmas,

An endless Sabbath-day.

For thee, O dear, dear Country!
Mine eyes their vigils keep;
For very love, beholding
Thy happy name, they weep.
The mention of thy glory
Is unction to the breast,
And medicine in sickness,
And love, and life, and rest.

O one, O only Mansion!
O Paradise of Joy,

Where tears are ever banished,
And smiles have no alloy!

Beside thy living waters

All plants are, great and small,

The cedar of the forest,

The hyssop of the wall; With jaspers glow thy bulwarks, Thy streets with emeralds blaze, The sardius and the topaz

Unite in thee their rays; Thine ageless walls are bonded With amethyst unpriced; Thy Saints build up its fabric,

And the corner-stone is CHRIST. The Cross is all thy splendor, The Crucified thy praise; His laud and benediction Thy ransomed people raise : "Jesus, the Gem of Beauty,

True God and Man," they sing, "The never-failing Garden,

The ever-golden Ring;

The best and dearest FATHER, Who made me and who saved, Bore with me in defilement,

And from defilement laved, When in his strength I struggle, For very joy I leap, When in my sin I totter,

I weep, or try to weep:
Then grace, sweet grace celestial,
Shall all its love display,
And David's Royal Fountain
Purge every sin away.

O mine, my golden Zion!
O lovelier far than gold,
With laurel-girt battalions,
And safe victorious fold!
O sweet and blessed Country,
Shall I ever see thy face?
O sweet and blessed Country,
Shall I ever win thy grace?
I have the hope within me
To comfort and to bless!
Shall I ever win the prize itself?
O tell me, tell me, Yes!

Exult! O dust and ashes!

The Lord shall be thy part; His only, his forever,

Thou shalt be, and thou art! Exult, O dust and ashes!

The Lord shall be thy part;

His only, his forever,

Thou shalt be, and thou art!

Translated from the Latin of BERNARD DE MORLAIX, by JOHN MASON NEALE.