Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
Day of wrath! O day of mourning! William Josiah Irons* (1812-1883).
This is a spectacular translation of the medieval sequence* ‘Dies irae, dies illa’*, at one time attributed to Thomas of Celano*. It was written by Irons in 1848, after hearing the Latin hymn sung at the funeral in Paris of the Archbishop, Denis Auguste Affre, who was shot on the barricades during the revolution of 1848 when trying to make peace between the insurgents and the soldiers, and who died on 27 June.
Irons printed his translation in a private publication for Margaret Street Chapel, Introits, and Hymns for Advent (1849). It was printed with music in the same year, and then in Irons’s The Metrical Psalter... for...
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MLA style (see MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 3rd Ed.)
. "Day of wrath! O day of mourning!."
The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press. Web. 14 May. 2025.<
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/d/day-of-wrath!-o-day-of-mourning!>.
Chicago style (see The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Ed.)
. "Day of wrath! O day of mourning!."
The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press, accessed May 14, 2025,
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/d/day-of-wrath!-o-day-of-mourning!.