Gerontius

Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus, De profundis oro te, Miserere, Judex meus, Parce mihi, Domine. Firmly I believe and truly God is Three, and God is One; And I next acknowledge duly Manhood taken by the Son. And I trust and hope most fully In that Manhood crucified; And each thought and deed unruly Do to death, as He has died. Simply to His grace and wholly Light and life and strength belong, And I love, supremely, solely, Him the holy, Him the strong. Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus, De profundis oro te, Miserere, Judex meus, Parce mihi, Domine. And I hold in veneration, For the love of Him alone, Holy Church, as His creation, And her teachings, as His own. And I take with joy whatever Now besets me, pain or fear, And with a strong will I sever All the ties which bind me here. Adoration aye be given With and through the angelic host, To the God of earth and heaven, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus, De profundis oro te, Miserere, Judex meus, Mortis in discrimine.

I can no more; for now it comes again, That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain, That masterful negation and collapse

Of all that makes me man; as though I bent Over the dizzy brink Of some sheer infinite descent; Or worse, as though Down, down for ever I was falling through The solid framework of created things, And needs must sink and sink Into the vast abyss. And, crueller still, A fierce and restless fright begins to fill The mansion of my soul. And, worse and worse, Some bodily form of ill Floats on the wind, with many a loathsome curse Tainting the hallowed air, and laughs, and flaps Its hideous wings, And makes me wild with horror and dismay. O Jesu, help! pray for me, Mary, pray! Some angel, Jesu! such as came to Thee In Thine own agony.... Mary, pray for me. Joseph, pray for me. Mary, pray for me.