Te Deum

His exultation was boundless.

The inscriptions on the medals which he struck to commemorate his success, the letters by which he enjoined the prelates of his kingdom to sing the Te Deum, were boastful and sarcastic.

His people, a people among whose many fine qualities moderation and prosperity cannot be reckoned, seemed for a time to be drunk with pride.

Even Boileau, hurried along by the prevailing enthusiasm, forgot the good sense and good taste to which he owed his reputation.

a.

The Seraphim Our ideas about the Seraphim are so colored by the description and function of them given in Isaiah chapter 6 verse 1 and following, and their mention in the Te Deum in conjunction with the Cherubim, who belong however to the angelic order, that it is likely to come as a shock to some to find them reckoned among the theriomorphic demons.

But in early Semitic belief, as will be seen, it is evident that the Seraphim were originally regarded as a species of harmful beings of demonic nature.

The name comes from a root, Seraph, meaning to burn.

Delacroix, lake of blood ill angels haunt, Where evergreen o'ershadowing woods arise; Under the surly heaven strange fanfares chant, And pass, like one of Weber's strangled sighs.

And malediction, blasphemy, and groan, Ecstasies, cries, Te Deums, and tears of brine, Are echoes through a thousand labyrinths flown, For mortal hearts an opiate divine.

A shout cried by a thousand sentinels, An order from a thousand bugles tossed, A beacon o'er a thousand citadels, A call to huntsmen in deep woodlands lost.

It is the mightiest witness that could rise To prove our dignity, O Lord, to Thee, This sob that rolls from age to age and dies Upon the verge of Thy eternity! End of poem.

The Venus Muse by Charles Baudelaire.

Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Mapstone.

Muse of my heart, lover of palaces, When January comes with wind and sleet, During the snowy eve's long wearinesses Will there be fire to warm thy violet feet? Wilt thou reanimate thy marble shoulders In the moonbeams that through the window fly? Or when thy purse dries up, thy palace moulders, Reap the far star-gold of the vaulted sky? For thou, to keep thy body to thy soul, Must swing a censer, wear a holy stole, And chant Te Deums with unbelief between.

Or, like a starving mountebank, expose Thy beauty and thy tear-drowned smile to those Who wait thy jest to drive away thy spleen.

She had centered many hopes upon her little boy, John, of whom she was confined without accident.

But he died, as already stated, in infancy, and this misfortune was a great shock to her, although she tried to conceal it by having the Te Deum sung at the funeral in lieu of the ordinary service and by setting up the streets of Alençon the inscription, "God gave him, God has taken him away." However, from that time forward she never laid aside her black dress, though later on she wore it trimmed with marten's fur.

Her best-known portrait represents her attired in this style with the quaint Viennese cap, which she had also adopted, set upon her head.

Not only did Margaret lose her son by death, but she was prevented from enjoying the companionship of her daughter, Jane.

Sir George Simpson avowed to the V.G. in 1841 that Mr. Beaver, the ex-chaplain, was the cause of the refusal.

The following day being Sunday, a high mass was celebrated with deacon and subdeacon for the first time in Oregon, and followed with a Te Deum.

On Sunday, September 30th, took place with great solemnity the first communion of those found prepared.

End of section 9.

She remained outside five days for want of a pilot and wind.

At last, having been five months and twenty-three days from Brest, and under the pilotage of Reeves, she crossed the bar safely and entered the Columbia River late in the afternoon of August 13th, 1847, and cast anchor in Gray's Bay.

Then it was that the missionaries, in their exceeding great joy, chanted a Te Deum, which the echoes of Cape Disappointment and the neighboring hills repeated with emulation.

On the 17th of August the L'Etoile du Matin got aground at the mouth of the Willamette, and on the 19th the sisters and the missionaries left her for St. Paul, which they reached on Saturday the 26th, late at night.