Dies irae

Set by (Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976), "Dies irae", op. 66 no. 2, published 1961 [ soprano, tenor, baritone, satb chorus, boys' chorus, orchestra, chamber orchestra, organ ], from War Requiem, no. 2  [sung text not yet checked]

Note: this setting is made up of several separate texts.


Dies irae, dies illa
solvet saeclum in favilla:
teste David cum Sibylla.

Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!

Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulcra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.

Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.

[ ... ]

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • DUT Dutch (Nederlands) [singable] (Guido (Pieter Theodoor Jozef) Gezelle) , "Kwade dag (Dies irae)", appears in Kerkhof-blommen, first published 1858
  • ENG English (Michael P Rosewall) , copyright © 2023, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Miguel Antonio Caro) , "Dies irae de Tomás de Celano", appears in Traducciones poéticas, Bogotá, Librería Americana, calle XIV, n. 77, 79, first published 1889

Researcher for this page: Lau Kanen [Guest Editor] 


Bugles sang, saddening the evening air;
And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear.
Voices of boys were by the river-side.
Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad.
The shadow of the morrow weighed on men.
Voices of old despondency resigned,
Bowed by the shadow of the morrow, slept.

Text Authorship:

  • by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918), "Voices", from Poems, first published 1931

Go to the general single-text view

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "Voix", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Dr. Anthony Krupp) (Clo Blanco) , "Voces", copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]


[ ... ]

Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.

Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?

Rex tremendae majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me fons pietatis.

[ ... ]

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • DUT Dutch (Nederlands) [singable] (Guido (Pieter Theodoor Jozef) Gezelle) , "Kwade dag (Dies irae)", appears in Kerkhof-blommen, first published 1858
  • ENG English (Michael P Rosewall) , copyright © 2023, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Miguel Antonio Caro) , "Dies irae de Tomás de Celano", appears in Traducciones poéticas, Bogotá, Librería Americana, calle XIV, n. 77, 79, first published 1889

Researcher for this page: Lau Kanen [Guest Editor] 


Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death:
Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland, --
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath, --
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.
He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed
Shrapnel. We chorused when he sang aloft;
We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against his powers.
We laughed, knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for Life; not men, for flags.

Text Authorship:

  • by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918), "The next war", from Arts and Letters, first published 1920

Go to the general single-text view

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "La prochaine guerre", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Dr. Anthony Krupp) (Clo Blanco) , "La siguiente guerra", copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]


[ ... ]

Recordare, Jesu pie,
quod sum causa tuae viae:
ne me perdas illa die.

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus:
redemisti Crucem passus:
tantus labor non sit cassus.

[ ... ]

Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
culpa rubet vultus meus:
supplicanti parce, Deus.

Qui Mariam absolvisti,
et latronem exaudisti,
mihi quoque spem dedisti.

[ ... ]

Inter oves locum praesta,
et ab haedis me sequestra,
statuens in parte dextra.

Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis:
voca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis:
gere curam mei finis.

[ ... ]

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • DUT Dutch (Nederlands) [singable] (Guido (Pieter Theodoor Jozef) Gezelle) , "Kwade dag (Dies irae)", appears in Kerkhof-blommen, first published 1858
  • ENG English (Michael P Rosewall) , copyright © 2023, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Miguel Antonio Caro) , "Dies irae de Tomás de Celano", appears in Traducciones poéticas, Bogotá, Librería Americana, calle XIV, n. 77, 79, first published 1889

Researcher for this page: Lau Kanen [Guest Editor] 


Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,
Great Gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse;
[ ... ]
Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm,
And beat it down before its sins grow worse.
[ ... ]

[ ... ]
But when thy spell be cast complete and whole,
May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul!

Text Authorship:

  • by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918), "Sonnet: On Seeing a Piece of Our Artillery Brought into Action", from Poems, first published 1931

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Dr. Anthony Krupp) (Clo Blanco) , copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]


Dies irae, dies illa
solvet saeclum in favilla:
teste David cum Sibylla.

Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!

[ ... ]

Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce, Deus:
[ ... ]

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • DUT Dutch (Nederlands) [singable] (Guido (Pieter Theodoor Jozef) Gezelle) , "Kwade dag (Dies irae)", appears in Kerkhof-blommen, first published 1858
  • ENG English (Michael P Rosewall) , copyright © 2023, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Miguel Antonio Caro) , "Dies irae de Tomás de Celano", appears in Traducciones poéticas, Bogotá, Librería Americana, calle XIV, n. 77, 79, first published 1889

Researcher for this page: Lau Kanen [Guest Editor] 


Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning, and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know. 

Think how it wakes the seed -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break [earth's]1 sleep at all?

Text Authorship:

  • by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918), "Futility", first published 1918

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "Futilité", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Dr. Anthony Krupp) (Clo Blanco) , copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)

First published in Nation, 1918. In some editions, in stanza 1 line 3, "unsown" is "half-sown"

1 Rands: "the earth's"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]


[ ... ]

[ ... ]
pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem. Amen.

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • DUT Dutch (Nederlands) [singable] (Guido (Pieter Theodoor Jozef) Gezelle) , "Kwade dag (Dies irae)", appears in Kerkhof-blommen, first published 1858
  • ENG English (Michael P Rosewall) , copyright © 2023, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Miguel Antonio Caro) , "Dies irae de Tomás de Celano", appears in Traducciones poéticas, Bogotá, Librería Americana, calle XIV, n. 77, 79, first published 1889

Researcher for this page: Lau Kanen [Guest Editor]

Author(s): Bible or other Sacred Texts , Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)