Hymn LXII.
1. Lo! Death, the King of silence, complains, my
brethren: that we have filled his abode with the wailing, of Hope
cut off.—2.
R., To Him be great praise Who comest down, to us
here below: and suffered and rose again and in His Body, raises
our bodies!
—3. While we weep like madmen, at the gates of
Sheol: hearken what Death says, reproaching us.—4. It
shames me, says Death, that ye, have overcome me: the half of
Sheol suffices not, to contain your slain.—5. For alien corpses
together, lie heaped in Sheol: there are two divisions there, the
dead, the slain.—6. Whereas I should complain that ye have
wronged me, lo! ye are weeping: ye have burst the gate of Sheol,
and done me hurt.—7. For ye are like unto an infant, which while
yet weeping: laughs again as ye also, over your dead.—8.
For there is no discretion in your mourning, and no
understanding: in your laughter—for to me ye seem like, to
a weaned babe.—9. One hour weeping and wailing, and after a
little: both jesting and
wantonness, as of children.—10. For
ye are unable to become, perfect men: that weep not yea and laugh
not, as the discreet.—11. Touching your books we are grieved,
that they have toiled over them: who should read them unto you,
even
the divine Scriptures.—12. The readers are crying
aloud, for ye are deaf: this
their
crying proves
concerning you, that ye are
as
stocks.—13. For since the
reader and the interpreter, are crying aloud: your ears therefore
are heavy, or else your hearts.—14. For if there were
with
you
an ear,
open
to persuasion: it were meet to hear
little, and to do much.—15. But because
its
hearing is
closed, whoso knocks at it: the voice returns back to him, who
sent it forth.—16. There is no crying with me of mine, I am not
deaf: none that reads or interprets
for me
, I am not
dull.—17. The breath that is from Him commands me,
sons
the God of truth: and with the command there follows, also the
fulfilment.—18. With me is no holding back, no turnings
aside: I wot no arrow even, could outstrip me.—19. But your
voices are scorned by me, when ye are weeping: over the graves of
your departed, in the cutting off of hope.—20. Were it possible
or permitted, when ye are weeping: I would go forth and tell
you
, to your faces.—21. “I am endeavouring to give,
an account of the death: and your voices disturb me, that I err
in my count.”—22. Ye nations, let not your understanding,
become childish: like that nation whose intelligence, was never
great.—23. In which prudence bestows not itself, as in a
fool: for its thoughts are darkness, without
discernment.—24. For your infants and your sons, in the
resurrection: they shall be foremost to come forth, as the first
fruits—25. Then after them
shall come
the just, as
victorious: last shall come forth the sinner, as put to
shame.—26. For although in the twinkling of an eye, they be
quickened: yet is it in order that their ranks, come forth from
Sheol.—27. Prophets come forth and Apostles, and
holy
Fathers: following them in due array, according to
command.—28. Lo! that which now is sown, in random mixture:
is yielded back in great order, as garden-herbs.—29. For though
one in the sowing, should mix all seeds: that which is earlier
than its fellow, prevents its fellow,—30. And not as their going
down was confused, so disordered shall be: their coming up from
the earth, for its order is fixed.—31. Lo! I have been against
myself, in what I have said: for secret things which ye
comprehended not, from me ye have learned.—32. Instead of the
tears that profit not, which are at the tomb: pour them forth in
your
prayer, in the midst of the Church.—33. For to the
dead there is profit in these, and likewise to the living: weep
not with a weeping that afflicts, both dead and
living!