"Anima Christi" by Unknown Writer (in Latin and translated into English and French)

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.
Corpus Christi, salva me.
Sanguis Christi, inebria me.
Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.
Passio Christi, conforta me.
O bone Jesu, exaudi me.
Intra tua vulnera absconde me.
Ne permittas me separari a te.
Ab hoste maligno defende me.
In hora mortis meae voca me.
Et iube me venire ad te,
Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te,
In saecula saeculorum.
Amen  
   
   
Soul of Christ make me holy,
Body of Christ save me,
Blood of Christ fill me with love,
Water from Christ’s side, wash me,
Passion of Christ strengthen me,
Good Jesus hear me,
Within your wounds hide me,
Never let me be parted from you,
From the evil enemy protect me,
At the hour of my death call,
And tell me to come to You,
That with your saints I may praise you,
Through all eternity.
Amen


Âme du Christ, sanctifie-moi,
Corps du Christ, sauve-moi,
Sang du Christ, enivre-moi,
Eau du côté du Christ, lave-moi,
Passion du Christ, fortifie-moi.
Ô bon Jésus, exauce-moi.
Dans tes blessures, cache-moi.
Ne permets pas que je sois séparé de toi.
De l’ennemi défends-moi.
À ma mort appelle-moi.
Ordonne-moi de venir à toi,
Pour qu’avec tes saints je te loue,
Dans les siècles des siècles,
Amen.

"The Wreck of the Deutschland" by Gerard Manley Hopkins (in English)

To the happy memory of five Franciscan Nuns, exiles by the Falk Laws, drowned between midnight and morning of Dec. 7th, 1875

I

Thou mastering me

God! giver of breath and bread;

World's strand, sway of the sea;

Lord of living and dead;

Thou hast bound bones & veins in me, fastened me flesh,

And after it almost unmade, what with dread,

Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?

Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.

I did say yes

O at lightning and lashed rod;

Thou heardst me truer than tongue confess

Thy terror, O Christ, O God;

Thou knowest the walls, altar and hour and night:

The swoon of a heart that the sweep and the hurl of thee trod

Hard down with a horror of height:

And the midriff astrain with leaning of, laced with fire of stress.

The frown of his face

Before me, the hurtle of hell

Behind, where, where was a, where was a place?

I whirled out wings that spell

And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.

My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,

Carrier-witted, I am bold to boast,

To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the grace.

I am soft sift

In an hourglass—at the wall

Fast, but mined with a motion, a drift,

And it crowds and it combs to the fall;

I steady as a water in a well, to a poise, to a pane,

But roped with, always, all the way down from the tall

Fells or flanks of the voel, a vein

Of the gospel proffer, a pressure, a principle, Christ's gift.

I kiss my hand

To the stars, lovely-asunder

Starlight, wafting him out of it; and

Glow, glory in thunder;

Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west:

Since, tho' he is under the world's splendour and wonder,

His mystery must be instressed, stressed;

For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.

Not out of his bliss

Springs the stress felt

Nor first from heaven (and few know this)

Swings the stroke dealt—

Stroke and a stress that stars and storms deliver,

That guilt is hushed by, hearts are flushed by and melt—

But it rides time like riding a river

(And here the faithful waver, the faithless fable and miss).

It dates from day

Of his going in Galilee;

Warm-laid grave of a womb-life grey;

Manger, maiden's knee;

The dense and the driven Passion, and frightful sweat;

Thence the discharge of it, there its swelling to be,

Though felt before, though in high flood yet—

What none would have known of it, only the heart, being hard at bay,

Is out with it! Oh,

We lash with the best or worst

Word last! How a lush-kept plush-capped sloe

Will, mouthed to flesh-burst,

Gush!—flush the man, the being with it, sour or sweet,

Brim, in a flash, full!—Hither then, last or first,

To hero of Calvary, Christ,'s feet—

Never ask if meaning it, wanting it, warned of it—men go.

Be adored among men,

God, three-numberéd form;

Wring thy rebel, dogged in den,

Man's malice, with wrecking and storm.

Beyond saying sweet, past telling of tongue,

Thou art lightning and love, I found it, a winter and warm;

Father and fondler of heart thou hast wrung:

Hast thy dark descending and most art merciful then.

With an anvil-ding

And with fire in him forge thy will

Or rather, rather then, stealing as Spring

Through him, melt him but master him still:

Whether at once, as once at a crash Paul,

Or as Austin, a lingering-out swéet skíll,

Make mercy in all of us, out of us all

Mastery, but be adored, but be adored King.

II

"Some find me a sword; some

The flange and the rail; flame,

Fang, or flood" goes Death on drum,

And storms bugle his fame.

But wé dréam we are rooted in earth—Dust!

Flesh falls within sight of us, we, though our flower the same,

Wave with the meadow, forget that there must

The sour scythe cringe, and the blear share come.

On Saturday sailed from Bremen,

American-outward-bound,

Take settler and seamen, tell men with women,

Two hundred souls in the round—

O Father, not under thy feathers nor ever as guessing

The goal was a shoal, of a fourth the doom to be drowned;

Yet did the dark side of the bay of thy blessing

Not vault them, the million of rounds of thy mercy not reeve even them in?

Into the snows she sweeps,

Hurling the haven behind,

The Deutschland, on Sunday; and so the sky keeps,

For the infinite air is unkind,

And the sea flint-flake, black-backed in the regular blow,

Sitting Eastnortheast, in cursed quarter, the wind;

Wiry and white-fiery and whirlwind-swivellèd snow

Spins to the widow-making unchilding unfathering deeps.

She drove in the dark to leeward,

She struck—not a reef or a rock

But the combs of a smother of sand: night drew her

Dead to the Kentish Knock;

And she beat the bank down with her bows and the ride of her keel:

The breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock;

And canvass and compass, the whorl and the wheel

Idle for ever to waft her or wind her with, these she endured.

Hope had grown grey hairs,

Hope had mourning on,

Trenched with tears, carved with cares,

Hope was twelve hours gone;

And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day

Nor rescue, only rocket and lightship, shone,

And lives at last were washing away:

To the shrouds they took,—they shook in the hurling and horrible airs.

One stirred from the rigging to save

The wild woman-kind below,

With a rope's end round the man, handy and brave—

He was pitched to his death at a blow,

For all his dreadnought breast and braids of thew:

They could tell him for hours, dandled the to and fro

Through the cobbled foam-fleece, what could he do

With the burl of the fountains of air, buck and the flood of the wave?

They fought with God's cold—

And they could not and fell to the deck

(Crushed them) or water (and drowned them) or rolled

With the sea-romp over the wreck.

Night roared, with the heart-break hearing a heart-broke rabble,

The woman's wailing, the crying of child without check—

Till a lioness arose breasting the babble,

A prophetess towered in the tumult, a virginal tongue told.

Ah, touched in your bower of bone

Are you! turned for an exquisite smart,

Have you! make words break from me here all alone,

Do you!—mother of being in me, heart.

O unteachably after evil, but uttering truth,

Why, tears! is it? tears; such a melting, a madrigal start!

Never-eldering revel and river of youth,

What can it be, this glee? the good you have there of your own?

Sister, a sister calling

A master, her master and mine!—

And the inboard seas run swirling and hawling;

The rash smart sloggering brine

Blinds her; but she that weather sees one thing, one;

Has one fetch in her: she rears herself to divine

Ears, and the call of the tall nun

To the men in the tops and the tackle rode over the storm's brawling.

She was first of a five and came

Of a coifèd sisterhood.

(O Deutschland, double a desperate name!

O world wide of its good!

But Gertrude, lily, and Luther, are two of a town,

Christ's lily and beast of the waste wood:

From life's dawn it is drawn down,

Abel is Cain's brother and breasts they have sucked the same.)

Loathed for a love men knew in them,

Banned by the land of their birth,

Rhine refused them, Thames would ruin them;

Surf, snow, river and earth

Gnashed: but thou art above, thou Orion of light;

Thy unchancelling poising palms were weighing the worth,

Thou martyr-master: in thy sight

Storm flakes were scroll-leaved flowers, lily showers—sweet heaven was astrew in them.

Five! the finding and sake

And cipher of suffering Christ.

Mark, the mark is of man's make

And the word of it Sacrificed.

But he scores it in scarlet himself on his own bespoken,

Before-time-taken, dearest prizèd and priced—

Stigma, signal, cinquefoil token

For lettering of the lamb's fleece, ruddying of the rose-flake.

Joy fall to thee, father Francis,

Drawn to the Life that died;

With the gnarls of the nails in thee, niche of the lance, his

Lovescape crucified

And seal of his seraph-arrival! and these thy daughters

And five-livèd and leavèd favour and pride,

Are sisterly sealed in wild waters,

To bathe in his fall-gold mercies, to breathe in his all-fire glances.

Away in the loveable west,

On a pastoral forehead of Wales,

I was under a roof here, I was at rest,

And they the prey of the gales;

She to the black-about air, to the breaker, the thickly

Falling flakes, to the throng that catches and quails

Was calling "O Christ, Christ, come quickly":

The cross to her she calls Christ to her, christens her wildworst Best.

The majesty! what did she mean?

Breathe, arch and original Breath.

Is it love in her of the being as her lover had been?

Breathe, body of lovely Death.

They were else-minded then, altogether, the men

Woke thee with a we are perishing in the weather of Gennesareth.

Or ís it that she cried for the crown then,

The keener to come at the comfort for feeling the combating keen?

For how to the heart's cheering

The down-dugged ground-hugged grey

Hovers off, the jay-blue heavens appearing

Of pied and peeled May!

Blue-beating and hoary-glow height; or night, still higher,

With belled fire and the moth-soft Milky way,

What by your measure is the heaven of desire,

The treasure never eyesight got, nor was ever guessed what for the hearing?

No, but it was not these.

The jading and jar of the cart,

Time's tasking, it is fathers that asking for ease

Of the sodden-with-its-sorrowing heart,

Not danger, electrical horror; then further it finds

The appealing of the Passion is tenderer in prayer apart:

Other, I gather, in measure her mind's

Burden, in wind's burly and beat of endragonèd seas.

But how shall I . . . make me room there:

Reach me a ... Fancy, come faster—

Strike you the sight of it? look at it loom there,

Thing that she ... there then! the Master,

Ipse, the only one, Christ, King, Head:

He was to cure the extremity where he had cast her;

Do, deal, lord it with living and dead;

Let him ride, her pride, in his triumph, despatch and have done with his doom there.

Ah! there was a heart right

There was single eye!

Read the unshapeable shock night

And knew the who and the why;

Wording it how but by him that present and past,

Heaven and earth are word of, worded by?—

The Simon Peter of a soul! to the blast

Tarpeian-fast, but a blown beacon of light.

Jesu, heart's light,

Jesu, maid's son,

What was the feast followed the night

Thou hadst glory of this nun?—

Feast of the one woman without stain.

For so conceivèd, so to conceive thee is done;

But here was heart-throe, birth of a brain,

Word, that heard and kept thee and uttered thee outright.

Well, she has thee for the pain, for the

Patience; but pity of the rest of them!

Heart, go and bleed at a bitterer vein for the

Comfortless unconfessed of them—

No not uncomforted: lovely-felicitous Providence

Finger of a tender of, O of a feathery delicacy, the breast of the

Maiden could obey so, be a bell to, ring of it, and

Startle the poor sheep back! is the shipwrack then a harvest, does tempest carry the grain for thee?

I admire thee, master of the tides,

Of the Yore-flood, of the year's fall;

The recurb and the recovery of the gulf's sides,

The girth of it and the wharf of it and the wall;

Staunching, quenching ocean of a motionable mind;

Ground of being, and granite of it: past all

Grasp God, throned behind

Death with a sovereignty that heeds but hides, bodes but abides;

With a mercy that outrides

The all of water, an ark

For the listener; for the lingerer with a love glides

Lower than death and the dark;

A vein for the visiting of the past-prayer, pent in prison,

The-last-breath penitent spirits—the uttermost mark

Our passion-plungèd giant risen,

The Christ of the Father compassionate, fetched in the storm of his strides.

Now burn, new born to the world,

Doubled-naturèd name,

The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled

Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame,

Mid-numbered he in three of the thunder-throne!

Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came;

Kind, but royally reclaiming his own;

A released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fíre hard-hurled.

Dame, at our door

Drowned, and among our shoals,

Remember us in the roads, the heaven-haven of the Reward:

Our Kíng back, Oh, upon énglish sóuls!

Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east,

More brightening her, rare-dear Britain, as his reign rolls,

Pride, rose, prince, hero of us, high-priest,

Our hearts' charity's hearth's fire, our thoughts' chivalry's throng's Lord.

Letter of Joan of Arc to the Duque of Bourgogne (in French)

† Jhesus Maria.

  « Hault et redoubté prince, duc de Bourgoingne, Jehanne la Pucelle vous requiert de par le Roy du ciel, mon droicturier et souverain seigneur, que le roy de France et vous, faciez bonne paix ferme, qui dure longuement. Pardonnez l'un à l'autre de bon cuer, entièrement, ainsi que doivent faire loyaulx chrestians; et s'il vous plaist à guerroier, si alez sur les Sarrazins. Prince de Bourgoingne, je vous prie, supplie et requiers tant humblement que requerir vous puis, que ne guerroiez plus ou saint royaume de France, et faictes retraire incontinent et briefment voz gens qui sont en aucunes places et forteresses dudit saint royaume; et de la part du gentil roy de France, il est prest de faire paix à vous, sauve son honneur, s'il ne tient en vous. Et vous faiz à savoir de par le Roy du ciel, mon droicturier et souverain seigneur, pour vostre bien et pour vostre honneur et sur voz vie, que vous n'y gaignerez point bataille à rencontre des loyaulx François, et que tous ceulx qui guerroient oudit saint royaume de France, guerroient contre le roy Jhesus, roy du ciel et de tout le monde, mon droicturier et souverain seigneur. Et vous prie et requiers à jointes mains, que ne faictes nulle bataille ne ne guerroiez contre nous, vous, voz gens ou subgiez ; et croiez seurement que, quelque nombre de gens que amenez contre nous, qu'ilz n'y gaigneront mie, et sera grant pitié de la grant bataille et du sang qui y sera respendu de ceulx qui y vendront contre nous, Et a trois sepmaines que je vous avoye escript et envoié bonnes lettres par ung hérault, que feussiez au sacre du roy qui, aujourd'hui dimenche XVIIe jour de ce présent mois de juillet, ce (se) fait en la cité de Reims : dont je n'ay eu point de response, ne n'ouy oncques puis nouvelles dudit hérault. A Dieu vous commens et soit garde de vous, s'il lui plaist; et prie Dieu qu'il y mecte bonne pais. Escript audit lieu de Reims, ledit XVIIe jour de juillet. »

Sonnet XLVII by William Shakespeare (in English)

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is tooke,
And each doth good turnes now vnto the other,
When that mine eye is famiſht for a looke,
Or heart in loue with ſighes himſelfe doth ſmother;
With my loues picture then my eye doth feaſt,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart:
An other time mine eye is my hearts gueſt,
And in his thoughts of loue doth ſhare a part.
So either by thy picture or my loue,
Thy ſeife away,are preſent ſtill with me,
For thou nor farther then my thoughts canſt moue,
And I am ſtill with them,and they with thee.
   Or if they ſleepe, thy picture in my ſight
   Awakes my heart,to hearts and eyes delight.

"Hostages of the Blackfeet" by Unknown Writer (in English)

 art by Angelo Torres and Nick Meglin - Masked Ranger #9 - Premier Magazines, August 1955. 

"Amor! Delírio - Engano" by Gonçalves Dias (in Portuguese)

Amor! delírio - engano... Sobre a terra

Amor tão bem fruí; a vida Inteira

Concentrei num só ponto - amá-la, e sempre.

Amei! - dedicação, ternura, extremos

Cismou meu coração, cismou minha alma,

- Minha alma que na taça da ventura

Vida breve d’amor sorveu gostosa.

Eu e ela, ambos nós, na terra ingrata

Oásis, paraíso, éden ou templo

Habitamos uma hora; e logo o tempo

Com a foice roaz quebrou-lhe o encanto,

Doce encanto que o amor nos fabricara.

E eu sempre a via!... quer nas nuvens d’oiro

Quando ia o sol nas vagas sepultar-se,

Ou quer na branca nuvem que velava _

O círculo da lua, - quer no manto

D’alvacenta neblina que baixava

Sobre as folhas do bosque, muda e grave,

Da tarde no cair; nos céus, na terra,

A ela, a ela só, viam meus olhos.

Seu nome, sua voz - ouvia eu sempre;

Ouvia-os no gemer da parda rola,

No trépido correr da veia argêntea,

No respirar da brisa, no sussurro

Do arvoredo frondoso, na harmonia

Dos astros inefável; - o seu nome!

Nos fugitivos sons de alguma frauta,

Que da noite o silêncio realçavam,

Os ares e a amplidão divinizando,

Ouviam meus ouvidos; e de ouvi-lo

Arfava de prazer meu peito ardente.

Ah! quantas vezes, quantas! junto dela

Não senti sua mão tremer na minha;

Não lhe escutei um lânguido suspiro,

Que vinha lá do peito à flor dos lábios

Deslizar-se e morrer?! Dos seus cabelos

A mágica fragrância respirando,

Escutando-lhe a voz doce e pausada,

Mil venturas colhi dos lábios dela,

Que Instantes de prazer me futuravam.

Cada sorriso seu era uma esp’rança,

E cada esp’rança enlouquecer de amores.

E eu amei tanto! - Oh! não! não hão de os homens

Saber que amor, à ingrata, havia eu dado;

Que afetos melindrosos, que em meu peito

Tinha eu guardado para ornar-lhe a fronte!

Oh! - não, - morra comigo o meu segredo;

Rebelde o coração murmure embora.

Que de vezes, pensando a sós comigo,

Não disse eu entre mim: - Anjo formoso,

Da minha vida que farei, se acaso

Faltar-me o teu amor um só instante;

- Eu que só vivo por te amar, que apenas

O que sinto por ti a custo exprimo?

No mundo que farei, como estrangeiro

Pelas vagas cruéis à praia Inóspita

Exânime arrojado? - Eu, que isto disse,

Existo e penso - e não morri, - não morro

Do que outrora senti, do que ora sinto

De pensar nela, de a rever em sonhos,

Do que fui, do que sou e ser podia!

Existo; e ela de mim jaz esquecida!

Esquecida talvez de amor tamanho,

Derramando talvez noutros ouvidos

Frases doces de amor, que dos seus lábios

Tantas vezes ouvi, - que tantas vezes

Em êxtase divino aos céus me alçaram,

- Que dando à terra ingrata o que era terra

Minha alma além das nuvens transportaram.

Existo! como outrora, no meu peito

Férvido o coração pular sentindo,

Todo o fogo da vida derramando

Em queixas mulheris, em moles versos.

E ela!... ela talvez nos braços doutrem

Com sua vida alimenta uma outra vida,

Com o seu coração o de outro amante,

Que mais feliz do que eu, inferno! a goza.

Ela, que eu respeitei, que eu venerava

Como a relíquia santa! - a quem meus olhos,

Receando ofendê-la, tantas vezes

De castos e de humildes se abaixaram!

Ela, perante quem sentia eu presa

A voz nos lábios e a paixão no peito!

Ela, ídolo meu, a quem o orgulho,

A força d’homem, o sentir, vontade

Própria e minha dediquei, - sujeita

À voz de alguém que não sou eu, - desperta,

Talvez no instante em que de mim se lembra,

Por um ósculo frio, por carícias

Devidas dum esposo!...

Oh! não poder-te,

Abutre roedor, cruel ciúme,

Tua funda raiz e a imagem dela

No peito em sangue espedaçar raivoso!

Mas tu, cruel, que és meu rival, numa hora,

Em que ela só julgar-se, hás de escutar-lhe

Um quebrado suspiro do imo peito,

Que d’eras já passadas se recorda.

Hás de escutá-lo, e ver-lhe a cor do rosto

Enrubescer-se ao deparar contigo!

Presa serás também d’atros cuidados,

Terás ciúme, e sofrerás qual sofro:

Nem menor que o meu mal quero a vingança.

"O Laço de Fita" by Castro Alves (in Portuguese)

Não sabes, criança? 'Stou louco de amores...
Prendi meus afetos, formosa Pepita.
Mas onde? No templo, no espaço, nas névoas?!
Não rias, prendi-me
Num laço de fita.


Na selva sombria de tuas madeixas,
Nos negros cabelos da moça bonita,
Fingindo a serpente qu'enlaça a folhagem,
Formoso enroscava-se
O laço de fita.


Meu ser, que voava nas luzes da festa,
Qual pássaro bravo, que os ares agita,
Eu vi de repente cativo, submisso
Rolar prisioneiro
Num laço de fita.


E agora enleada na tênue cadeia
Debalde minh'alma se embate, se irrita...
O braço, que rompe cadeias de ferro,
Não quebra teus elos,
Ó laço de fita!


Meu Deusl As falenas têm asas de opala,
Os astros se libram na plaga infinita.
Os anjos repousam nas penas brilhantes...
Mas tu... tens por asas
Um laço de fita.


Há pouco voavas na célere valsa,
Na valsa que anseia, que estua e palpita.
Por que é que tremeste? Não eram meus lábios...
Beijava-te apenas...
Teu laço de fita.


Mas ai! findo o baile, despindo os adornos
N'alcova onde a vela ciosa... crepita,
Talvez da cadeia libertes as tranças
Mas eu... fico preso
No laço de fita.


Pois bem! Quando um dia na sombra do vale
Abrirem-me a cova... formosa Pepital
Ao menos arranca meus louros da fronte,
E dá-me por c'roa...
Teu laço de fita.