Latinised Hymns

All creation groans and travails:

All creation groans and travails:
Thou, O God, shalt hear its groan:
For of man and all creation
Thou alike art God alone.

Pity then thy guiltless creatures,
Who not less man's sufferings share:
For our sins it is they perish:
Let them profit by our prayer.

Cast thine eyes of love and mercy
On the misery of the land:
Say to the destroying Angel,
"'Tis enough: stay now thine hand."

In our homesteads, in our valleys,
Through our pasture-lands give peace:
Through the Goshen of thine Israel
Bid the grievous murrain cease.

But with deeper, tenderer pity,
Call to mind, O Son of God,
Those in thine own image fashioned,
Ransomed with thy precious blood:

Hear and grant the supplications,
Like a cloud of incense borne
Up toward thy Seat of Mercy
From thy people's hearts forlorn.

For the widow and the orphan,
For the helpless and the poor;
Helpless, hopeless, if thou spare not
Of their basket and their store,

So – while these her earnest accents
Day by day thy Church repeats, –
That our sheep may bring forth thousands
And ten thousands in our streets;

That our oxen, strong to labour,
May not know nor fear decay:
That there be no more complaining,
And the plague have passed away.

And at last, to all thy servants,
When earth's troubles shall be o'er,
Give, O Triune God, a portion
With thyself for evermore.

J.M. Neale (1866)

Gemit mundus et laborat;
laborantem tu vides:
quippe hominum et mundi
Deus aeque solus es.

Parce nobiscum dolenti
nec culpando pecori:
culpa nostra pereunti
prosit nostra prex ei.

Nostrum rus adflictum clemens
atque amans inspexeris
angeloque perditori
"Ohe! iam" dic "est satis!"

Ut casis convallibusque,
pascuis sit otium;
nostrum, sicut in Aegypto,
peste libera solum.

Sed in primis miserescens,
Deo Nate, respice
specie tua creatos,
emptos tuo sanguine.

Cum favore votum audi
surgens turi simile
desperante tua plebe
ad Thronum Clementiae,

viduis favens et orbis,
quis nec ops nec sunt opes:
nec ops, nisi quid tu parces
calathis, nec ulla spes,

ut, ex corde tui cantum
dum cultores iterant,
nostrae per vias bidentes
milliens parturiant;

sani boves et securi
tollant fortes onera,
neve sit quod tum queramur
dempta pestilentia;

et tuis cum pace terrae
universis denique
dona tecum sempiternam
partem, Trine at Unice.

MM 29.3–10.4.01