Funeral Hymn
Funeral Hymn - meaning Summary
Mortality and Penitence
This short hymn confronts mortality and an assured physical decay, then imagines the soul traveling to a purgatorial realm where suffering cleanses past actions. It emphasizes Christian remedies—prayer, almsgiving, psalms, and Mary’s intercession—as means to shorten the soul’s suffering and secure release. The poem presents death as universal, afterlife as corrective, and communal devotion as practical help for the departed.
Read Complete AnalysesDust unto dust, To this all must; The tenant hath resign'd The faded form To waste and worm- Corruption claims her kind. Through paths unknown Thy soul hath flown, To seek the realms of woe, Where fiery pain Shall purge the stain Of actions done below. In that sad place, By Mary's grace, Brief may thy dwelling be Till prayers and alms, And holy psalms, Shall set the captive free.
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