A number of late mediaeval English poems use the Latin words Timor mortis conturbat me as a refrain. This is excerpted from a responsory of the Office of the Dead, the third nocturn of Matins:
Peccantem me cotidie et non repenitentem timor mortis conturbat me. * Quia in inferno nulla est redempcio miserere mei domine et salva me.A ballad by an unknown poet of the 15th century:
As I have been sinning daily and repenting not, the fear of death disturbs me. * Have mercy on me Lord, and save me, for none is redeemed in hell.
Timor mortis conturbat me.
As I went on a merry morning,
I heard a bird both weep and sing.
This was the tenor of her talking:
Timor mortis conturbat me.
I asked that bird what she meant.
I am a musket both fair and gent;
For dread of death I am all shent:
Timor mortis conturbat me.
When I shall die, I know no day;
What country or place I cannot say;
Wherefore this song sing I may:
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Jesu Christ, when He sould die,
To His Father He gan say,
Father, He said, in Trinity,
Timor mortis conturbat me.
All Christian people, behold and see:
This world is but a vanity
And replete with necessity.
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Wake I or sleep, eate or drink,
When I on my last end do think,
For greate fear my soul do shrink:
Timor mortis conturbat me.
God grant us grace Him for to serve,
And be at our end when we sterve,
And from the fiend He us preserve.
Timor mortis conturbat me.