Which they utter as they go hence?
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I am parted from my brethren
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All my friends do i abandon and go hence
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But whither i go, that understand i not
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Neither what shall become of me yonder;
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Only God who hath summoned me knoweth
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But make commemoration of me with the song:
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Alleluia! |
Alleluia! |
Alleluia!
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But whither now go the souls?
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How dwell they now together there?
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This mystery have i desired to learn; |
but none can impart aright
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Do they call to mind their own people, as we do them?
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Or have they forgotten all those who mourn them and make the song:
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Alleluia! |
Alleluia! |
Alleluia!
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We go forth on the path eternal, and as condemned
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With downcast faces, present ourselves before the only God eternal
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Where then is comeliness? |
Where then is wealth?
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Where then is the glory of this world?
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There shall none of these things aid us, but only to say oft the psalm:
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Alleluia! |
Alleluia! |
Alleluia!
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If thou hast shown mercy unto man, o man
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That same mercy shall be shown thee there;
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And if on an orphan thou hast shown compassion
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The same shall there deliver thee from want
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If in this life the naked thou hast clothed
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The same shall give thee shelter there, and sing the psalm:
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Alleluia! |
Alleluia! |
Alleluia!
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Youth and the beauty of the body fade at the hour of death
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And the tongue then burneth fiercely, and the parched throat is inflamed
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The beauty of the eyes is quenched then, the comeliness of the face all altered
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The shapeliness of the neck destroyed; |
and the other parts have become numb
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Nor often say: Alleluia! |
Alleluia! |
Alleluia!
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With ecstasy are we inflamed if we but hear that there is light eternal yonder;
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That there is Paradise, wherein every soul of Righteous Ones rejoiceth
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Let us all, also, enter into Christ, that we may cry aloud thus unto God:
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Alleluia! |
Alleluia! |
Alleluia! |