THE DIRGE OF MESSINA.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9343, 12 January 1909, Page 6

THE DIRGE OF MESSINA.

A Requiem Mass is sung or said In town and village for the Dead, Who from life in thousands fled In the doom of Messina. O, the shrieks of human woe I As rook the houses to and fro And tumbling into ruins go In the doom of Messina. O, the shrieks that pierce the sky, From that mass of agony ! While with their tumbling homes they die • la the doom of Messina. Ages come, and ages go, Will any ever know such woe, As in that rooking to and fro Of the town of Messina? By Thine anguish ’neath the Tree In the moonlight of Gethsemanel Assoile the souls that came from Thee Caught in the doom of Messina. By Thy fainting on the Way Of Sorrows on that fateful Day! Aesoil the souls that passed away .In the doom of Messina. By the Sacred Mystery Of Thy hanging on the Tree! With one each side in agony, Anneal the dead at Messinal By Thy cry of bitter pain ! Which Time shall never know again, Which darkness shrouded, but in vain. Anneal the dead at Messina. By Thy rising from the Dead! Be those sad Souls to Eden sped. And in that Garden comforted From the doom of Messing. Now offered everywhere the Host For all the Souls that there were'lost Two imndred thousand down each coast : r And in the doom of Messina. Thrice fifty thousand to and fro, But yesterday did come and go, One hundred thousand now laid low In the doom of Messina I O, earthquake spasms of eaoh soul I Thus harried to the Eternal goal, No moment left for self-control In that fell doom of Messina. Who would not pray for those thus brought To sadden ruin in a thought? Who by His precious Blood were bought, The Souls that died at Messina. Dashed out of life upon the ground. Midst buildings tumbling all around 1 Amidst the Blessed be thay now found Those Souls that died at MesEina. A town of old renown their grave Who perished in that earthquake wave, Where Civilisation could not save,* But God alone in Messina. A.T.T. ♦“The Lord alone shall be 'exalted in that day.”—lsaiah IX, 11.