Lyrics Britten: War Requiem, Op. 66 - Libera me - Галина Вишневская, Peter Pears, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Britten: War Requiem, Op. 66 - Libera me

Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna
In die illa tremenda:
Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra:
Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem
Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo
Dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira
Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna
Quando coeli movendi sunt i terra
Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis
Et miseriae, dies magna et amara valde
Libera me, Domine
It seems that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan
«Strange friend,» I said, «here is no cause to mourn.»
«None», said the other, «save the undone years
The hopelessness.
Whatever hope is yours
Was my life also;
I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world
For by my glee might many men have laughed
And of my weeping something had been left
Which must die now.
I mean the truth untold
The pity of war, the pity war distilled
Now men will go content with what we spoiled
Or, discontent, boil boldly, and be spilled
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress
Miss we the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells
Even from wells we sunk too deep for war
Even from the sweetest wells that ever were
I am the enemy you killed, my friend
I knew you in this dark;
for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed
I parried;
but my hands were loath and cold
Let us sleep now»
{BOYS AND CHORUS AND SOPRANO]
In paridisum deducant te Angeli;
In tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres
Et perducant te in civitatem sanctam
Jerusalem.
Chorus Angelorum te suscipiat
Et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam
Habeas requiem
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:
Et lux perpetua luceat eis
In paridisum deducant te Angeli;
In tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres
Et perducant te in civitatem sanctam
Jerusalem.
Chorus Angelorum te suscipiat
Et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam
Habeas requiem
{TENOR AND BARITONE]
Let us sleep now
Requiescat in pace.
Amen