[00:00.00]Why these bitter words of the dying, o brethren,
[00:10.18]which they utter as they go hence?
[00:18.31]I am parted from my brethren.
[00:23.17]All my friends do i abandon and go hence.
[00:30.64]But whither i go, that understand i not,
[00:39.39]neither what shall become of me yonder;
[00:47.59]only God who hath summoned me knoweth.
[00:55.01]But make commemoration of me with the song:
[01:03.97]Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
[01:25.83]But whither now go the souls?
[01:29.62]How dwell they now together there?
[01:34.35]This mystery have i desired to learn; but none can impart aright.
[01:47.07]Do they call to mind their own people, as we do them?
[01:55.74]Or have they forgotten all those who mourn them and make the song:
[02:08.52]Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
[02:29.49]We go forth on the path eternal, and as condemned,
[02:37.91]with downcast faces, present ourselves before the only God eternal.
[02:49.32]Where then is comeliness? Where then is wealth?
[02:58.25]Where then is the glory of this world?
[03:04.65]There shall none of these things aid us, but only to say oft the psalm:
[03:16.41]Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
[03:38.90]If thou hast shown mercy unto man, o man,
[03:46.22]that same mercy shall be shown thee there;
[03:54.03]and if on an orphan thou hast shown compassion,
[04:00.92]the same shall there deliver thee from want.
[04:08.52]If in this life the naked thou hast clothed,
[04:15.24]the same shall give thee shelter there, and sing the psalm:
[04:27.31]Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
[04:48.39]Youth and the beauty of the body fade at the hour of death,
[04:57.03]and the tongue then burneth fiercely, and the parched throat is inflamed.
[05:06.80]The beauty of the eyes is quenched then, the comeliness of the face all altered,
[05:22.42]the shapeliness of the neck destroyed; and the other parts have become numb,
[05:35.28]nor often say: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
[06:02.52]With ecstasy are we inflamed if we but hear that there is light eternal yonder;
[06:15.06]that there is Paradise, wherein every soul of Righteous Ones rejoiceth.
[06:27.34]Let us all, also, enter into Christ, that we may cry aloud thus unto God:
[06:44.34]Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!