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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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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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?
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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! |