| Which they utter as they go hence?
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| I am parted from my brethren
|
| All my friends do i abandon and go hence
|
| 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!
|
| 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?
|
| Or have they forgotten all those who mourn them and make the song:
|
| Alleluia! |
| Alleluia! |
| Alleluia!
|
| 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?
|
| Where then is the glory of this world?
|
| There shall none of these things aid us, but only to say oft the psalm:
|
| Alleluia! |
| Alleluia! |
| Alleluia!
|
| 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:
|
| Alleluia! |
| Alleluia! |
| Alleluia!
|
| 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
|
| The shapeliness of the neck destroyed; |
| and the other parts have become numb
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| Nor often say: Alleluia! |
| Alleluia! |
| Alleluia!
|
| 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
|
| Let us all, also, enter into Christ, that we may cry aloud thus unto God:
|
| Alleluia! |
| Alleluia! |
| Alleluia! |