Religion

From "The Last Judgment"

by Goronwy Owen 1723–1769

Translated by Alfred Perceval Graves (1917) · From A Celtic Psaltery (1917)

Religion

Day of Doom, at thy glooming
May Earth be but meet for thee!
Day, whose hour of louring
Not angels in light foresee!
To Christ alone and the Father
'Tis known when thy hosts of might
Swift as giants shall gather,
Yet stealthy as thieves at night.

Then what woe to the froward,
What joy to the just and kind!
When the Seraph band comes streaming
Christ's gleaming banner behind;
Heavenly blue shall its hue be
To a myriad marvelling eyes;
Save where its heart encrimsons
The cross of the sacrifice!

Rocks in that day's black fury
Like leaves shall be whirled in the blast;
Hoary-headed Eryri
Prone to the plough-lands cast!
Then shall be roaring and warring
And ferment of sea and firth,
Ocean, in turmoil upboiling,
Confounding each bound of earth.
The flow of the Deluge of Noah
Were naught by that fell Flood's girth!

Then Heaven's pure self shall offer
Her multitudinous eyes,
Cruel blinding to suffer,
As her sun faints out of the skies;
And the bright-faced Moon shall languish
And perish in such fierce pain
As darkened and shook with anguish
All Life, when the Lamb was slain.

✦ ✦ ✦

After Goronwy Owen.

MLA

Owen, Goronwy. “From "The Last Judgment".” Translated by Alfred Perceval Graves. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/goronwy-owen/0/.

Chicago

Owen, Goronwy. “From "The Last Judgment".” Translated by Alfred Perceval Graves. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/goronwy-owen/0/.

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