"Dies Irae" (Day of Wrath) is a thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano (1200 – c. 1265). It is a medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic. The poem describes the day of judgment, the last trumpet summoning souls before the throne of God, where the saved will be delivered and the unsaved cast into eternal flames.
The hymn is best known from its use as a sequence in the Roman Catholic Requiem mass (Mass for the Dead or Funeral Mass). An English version is found in various Anglican Communion missals.
Read more about Dies Irae: Use in The Roman Liturgy, Text
Famous quotes containing the word dies:
“The chief want, in every State that I have been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants. This alone draws out “the great resources” of Nature, and at last taxes her beyond her resources; for man naturally dies out of her.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)