Words: From the Latin of Thomas of Celano, 13th Century
Translated by Sir Walter Scott, 1805
Music: Verbum supernum prodiens,
Leipsic,
Commandments,
Babylon's Streams,
St. Cross
Meter: LM
1. That day of wrath, that dreadful day,
When heaven and earth shall pass away!
What power shall be the sinner's stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?
2. When, shriveling like a parchèd scroll,
The flaming heavens together roll;
When louder yet, and yet more dread;
swells the high trump that wakes the dead.
3. O on that day, that wrathful day
When man to judgment wakes from clay,
Be thou, O Christ, the sinner's stay,1
Though heaven and earth shall pass away.
Notes:
1. Or: Be thou 'the trembling sinner's stay,' Return
