What Horror Profound! The Skies Are Rended

For Second Advent, Ascension

Words: Sensus quis horror percutit? Latin Hymn by Jean Baptiste de Santeüil (1630-1697), Cluniac Breviary, 1686, with notes
Translation by Isaac Williams
Significantly altered to "What is this horror? The sky is rended" in his Hymns translated from the Parisian Breviary, 1839.

Source: British Magazine and Monthly Register of Religious and Ecclesiastical Information, Parochial History, and Documents Respecting the State of the Poor, Progress of Education, Etc, Volume 6. (John Turrill, 1834), p. 620.

    What horror profound!
    The skies are rended;
    Angel troops around
Are hurrying ; Christ sits; all is ended!

    Death has his warrant,
    The trump hath sounded;
    Swift as the torrent,
By the judgment they are surrounded!

    To right or left hand
    He gives the token:
    Alas, that dark band!
His sheep He knows,—the word is spoken.

    By the Judge's side
    They are set on high
    Who did poor abide,
And flee to Him in his poverty.

    To the scoffing Jew,
    And infidel scorning,
    The cross shines in view;
Some at the sight are blest,—some mourning.

    Trembling, sighing, now
    They see Him they wounded,
    While the self-same brow
Hath friends consoled, and foes confounded.

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