Let us pray for the dead!
For our foes who have died,
May they be justified!
For the stranger whose eyes
Closed on cold alien skies;
For the sailors who perished
By the frail arts they cherished;
Let us pray for the unknown dead.
Father in heaven, to Thee we turn,
Transfer their debt to us;
Oh! bid their souls no longer burn
In mediate anguish thus.
Let us pray for the soldiers,
On whatever side slain;
Whose white bones on the plain
Lay unclaimed and unfathered,
By the vortex-wind gathered,
Let us pray for the valiant dead.
Oh! pity the soldier,
Kind Father in heaven,
Whose body doth moulder
Where his soul fled self-shriven.
We have prayed for the dead;
All the faithful departed,
Who to Christ were true-hearted;
And our prayers shall be heard,
For so promised the Lord;
And their spirits shall go
Forth from limbo-like woe--
And joyfully swift the justified dead
Shall feel their unbound pinions sped,
Through the valley of purgatorial fire,
To their heavenly home by the gate called Desire,
By the gate called Desire,
In clouds they've ascended--
O Saints, pray for us,
Now your sorrows are ended!
THE DE PROFUNDIS BELL.
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