Music and text for this day

REQUIEM AETERNAM

 CHORUS
 Requiem aeternam dona eis,
 Domine;et lux perpetua luceat eis.

 BOYS
 Te decet hymnus, Deus in Sion:
 et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem;
 exaudi orationem meam,
 ad te omnis caro veniet.

 CHORUS
 Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine;
 et lux perpetua luceat eis.

 TENOR
 What passing bells
 for these who die as cattle?
 Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
 Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
 Can patter out their hasty orisons
 No mockeries
 for them from prayers or bells,
 Nor any voice of mourning save the oirs,
 The shrill,
 demented choirs of wailing shells;
 And bugles calling
 for them from sad shires.
 What candles may be held
 to speed them at all?
 Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
 Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
 The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
 Their flowers the tenderness
 of silent minds,
 And each slow dusk a drawing-down
 of blinds.

 CHORUS
 Kyrie eleison
 Christe eleison
 Kyrie eleison

 DIES IRAE

 CHORUS
 Dies irae, dies illa,
 Solvet saeclum in favilla:
 Teste David cum Sibylla.
 Quantus tremor est futurus,
 Quando Judex est venturus,
 Cuncta stricte discussurus!
 Tuba mirum spargens sonum
 Per sepulchra regionum
 Coget omnes ante thronum.
 Mors stupebit et natura,
 Cum resurget creatura,
 Judicanti responsura.

 BARITONE
 Bugles sang,
 saddening the evening air;
 And bugles answered,
 sorrowful to hear.
 Voices of boys were by the river-side.
 Sleep mothered them;
 and left the twilight sad.
 The shadow of the morrow
 weighed on men.
 Voices of old despondency resigned,
 Bowed by the shadow of the morrow,
 slept.

 SOPRANO
 Liber scriptus proferetur,
 In quo totum continetur,
 Unde mundus judicetur.
 Judex ergo cum sedebit
 Quidquid latet, apparebut:
 Nil inultum remanebit.

 CHORUS
 Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
 Quem patronem rogaturus,
 Cum vix justus sit securus?

 SOPRANO, CHORUS
 Rex tremendae majestatis,
 Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
 Salva me, fons pietatis.

 TENOR, BARITONE
 Out there,
 we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death:
 Sat down and eaten with him,
 cool and bland,-
 Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
 We’ve sniffed the green thick odour
 of his breath,-Our eyes wept,
 but our courage didn’t writhe.
 He’s spat at us with bullets
 and he’s coughed
 Shrapnel. We chorused when he sang aloft;
 We whistled while he shaved us
 with his scythe.
 Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
 We laughed at him,
 we leagued with him, old chum.
 No soldier’s paid to kick
 against his powers.
 We laughed,
 knowing that better men would come,
 And greater wars;
 when each proud fighter brags
 He wars on Death – for Life; not men –
 for flags.

 CHORUS
 Recordare Jesu pie,
 Quod sum causa tuae viae:
 Ne me perdas illa die.
 Quarens me, sedisti lassus:
 Redemisti crucem passus:
 Tantus labor non sit cassus:
 Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
 Culpa rubet vultus meus:
 Supplicanti parce Deus.
 Qui Mariam absolvisti,
 Et latronem exaudisti,
 Mihi quoque spem dedisti.
 Inter oves locum praesta,
 Et ab haedis me sequestra,
 Statuens in parte dextra.
 Confutatis maledictis,
 Flammis acribus addictis,
 Voca me cum benedictis.
 Oro supplex et acclinis
 Cor contritum quasi cinis
 Gere curam mei finis.

 BARITONE
 Be slowly lifted up,
 thou long black arm,
 Great gun towering toward Heaven,
 about to curse;
 Reach at that arrogance
 which needs thy harm,
 And beat it down before
 its sins grow worse;
 But when thy spell be cast complete
 and whole,
 May God curse thee,
 and cut thee from our soul!

 CHORUS
 Dies irae, dies illa,
 Solvet saeclum in favilla:
 Teste David cum Sibylla.
 Quantus tremor est futurus,
 Quando Judex est venturus,
 Cuncta stricte discussurus!

 SOPRANO, CHORUS
 Lacrimosa dies illa,
 Qua resurget ex favilla,
 Judicandus homo reus:
 Huic ergo parce Deus.

 TENOR
 Move him into the sun –
 Gently its touch awoke him once,
 At home, whispering of fields unsown.
 Always it woke him,
 even in France,
 Until this morning and this snow.
 If anything might rouse him now
 The kind old sun will know.

 SOPRANO, CHORUS
 Lacrimosa dies illa…

 TENOR
 Think how it wakes the seeds –
 Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
 Are limbs, so dear-acheived, are sides,
 Full-nerved – still warm –
 too hard to stir?
 Was it for this the clay grew tall?

 SOPRANO, CHORUS
 …Qua resurget ex favilla…

 TENOR
 Was it for this the clay grew tall?

 SOPRANO, CHORUS
 …Judicandus homo reus.

 TENOR
 – O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
 To break earth’s sleep at all?

 CHORUS
 Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem.
 Amen.

 OFFERTORIUM

 BOYS
 Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae,
 libera animas omnium fidelium
 defunctorum de poenis inferni,
 et de profundo lacu:
 libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas
 tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum.

 CHORUS
 Sed signifer sanctus Michael
 repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam:
 Quam olim Abrahae promisisti,
 et semini ejus.

 TENOR, BARITONE
 So Abram rose,
 and clave the wood, and went,
 And took the fire with him, and a knife.
 And as they sojourned both
 of them together,
 Isaac the first-born spake and said,
 My Father,
 Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
 But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
 Then Abram bound the youth
 with belts and straps,
 And builded parapets and trenched there,
 And streched forth the knife to slay his son.
 When lo!
 and angel called him out of heaven,
 Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
 Neither do anything to him. Behold,
 A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
 Offer the Ram of Pride insteam of him.
 But the old man would not so,
 but slew his son, –
 And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

 BOYS
 Hostias et preced tibi Domine
 laudis offerimus; tu suscipe pro
 animabus illis, quarum hodie
 memoriam facimus: fac eas, Domine,
 de morte transire ad vitam.
 Quam olim Abrahae promisisti
 en semini ejus.

 CHORUS
 …Quam olim Abrahae promisisti
 et semini ejus.

 SANCTUS

 SOPRANO, CHORUS
 Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus
 Dominus Deus Saboath.
 Pleni sunt ceoli et terra gloria tua,
 Hosanna in excelsis.
 Sanctus.
 Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
 Hosanna in excelsis.
 Sanctus.

 BARITONE
 After the blast
 of lighning from the East,
 The flourish of loud clouds,
 the Chariot Throne;
 After the drums of time
 have rolled and ceased,
 And by the bronze west
 long retreat is blown,
 Shall life renew these bodies?
 Of a truth
 All death will He annul,
 all tears assuage? –
 Fill the void veins of Life again with youth,
 And wash,
 with an immortal water, Age?
 When I do ask white Age
 he saith not so:
 “My head hangs weighed with snow.”
 And when I hearken to the Earth,
 she saith:
 “My fiery heart shrinks, aching.
 It is death.
 Mine ancient scars shalls not be glorified,
 Nor my titanic tears,
 the sea, be dried.”

 AGNUS DEI

 TENOR
 One ever hangs
 where shelled roads part.
 In this war
 He too lost a limb,
 But His disciples hide apart;
 And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

 CHORUS
 Agnus Dei,
 qui tollis peccata mundi,
 dona eis requiem.

 TENOR
 Near Golgatha strolls many a priest,
 And in their faces there is pride
 That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
 By whom the gentle Christ’s denied.

 CHORUS
 Agnus Dei,
 qui tollis peccata mundi,
 dona eis requiem.

 TENOR
 The scribes on all the people shove
 and bawl allegiance to the state,

 CHORUS
 Agnus Dei,
 qui tollis peccata mundi…

 TENOR
 But they who love
 the greater love
 Lay down their life; they do not hate.

 CHORUS
 …Dona eis requiem.

 TENOR
 Dona nobis pacem.

 LIBERA ME

 CHORUS
 Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna,
 in die illa tremenda:
 Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra:
 Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.

 SOPRANO, CHORUS
 Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo
 dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira.
 Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna.
 Quando coeli movendi sunt i terra.
 Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis
 et miseriae, dies magna et amara valde.
 Libera me, Domine.

 TENOR
 It seems that out of battle I escaped
 Down some profound dull tunnel,
 long since scooped
 Through granites
 which titanic wars had groined.
 Yet also there
 encumbered sleepers groaned,
 Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
 Then, as I probed them,
 one sprang up, and stared
 With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
 Lifting distressful hands
 as if to bless.
 And no guns thumped,
 or down the flues made moan.
 “Strange friend,”
 I said,
 “here is no cause to mourn.”

 BARITONE
 “None”, said the other,
 “save the undone years,
 The hopelessness.
 Whatever hope is yours,
 Was my life also; I went hunting wild
 After the wildest beauty in the world,
 For by my glee might
 many men have laughed,
 And of my weeping
 something had been left,
 Which must die now.
 I mean the truth untold,
 The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
 Now men will go content
 with what we spoiled.
 Or, discontent, boil boldly, and be spilled.
 They will be swift
 with swiftness of the tigress,
 None will break ranks,
 though nations trek from progress.
 Miss we the march of this retreating world
 Into vain citadels that are not walled.
 Then, when much blood
 had clogged their chariot-wheels
 I would go up and wash them
 from sweet wells,
 Even from wells we sunk too deep for war,
 Even from the sweetest wells
 that ever were.
 I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
 I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
 Yesterday through me
 as you jabbed and killed.
 I parried;
 but my hands were loath and cold”.
 Let us sleep now…”

 BOYS, CHORUS, SOPRANO
 In paridisum deducant te Angeli;
 in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres,
 et perducant te in civitatem sanctam
 Jerusalem. Chorus Angelorum te suscipiat,
 et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam
 habeas requiem.

 BOYS
 Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:
 et lux perpetua luceat eis.

 CHORUS
 In paradisum deducant etc.

 SOPRANO
 Chorus Angeloru, te suscipiat etc.

 TENOR, BARITONE
 Let us sleep now.

 CHORUS
 Requiescant in pace.

 A M E N