Hymn LXIV.

Hymn LXIV.

1. O feeble ones, why weep ye, over your dead:  who in death are at rest from sorrows and sins?—2. R., Glory to Him Who endured all, for the sake of all men:  yea tasted death for the sake of all, to bring all to life—3. I reveal unto you, that even Satan, though much content:  at your weeping, yet laughs much, at your mourning.—4. In mockery he winks at me and nods to me, as a jester:  “Come let us laugh at sinners, for lo! they are mad.”—5. Truly they have given up remembrance of that fire, which I have hidden for them:  and lo! the fools are drunken with weeping, for their departed.—6. Instead of weeping as though, without provision:  I had plundered and sent forth their dead, lo! they are mad.—7. The souls of the evil are to be afflicted, till the judgment day:  and these weep over the graves, like to madmen.—8. They care not for their own sins, that haply to-morrow:  they must go in shame of face, to join their dead.—9. And thus shall all be put to shame alike, family by family:  in Sheol the wretches shall repent without avail.—10. Leave the drunken and the madman, until that day:  wherein each shall shake off his wine wherewith he was maddened.—11. I will go to gather them, like children:  that they may play the wanton and the madman, until they perish.—12. Lo! I have revealed to you the mystery, the secret of my comrade:  go forth therefore, depart, amend, in repentance.—13. Leave me, I too will depart, I will see to my affairs:  that with open face I may give my account to my Lord.—14. I know that the wind as it blew, has borne away my words:  for ye are the same whom I, ofttimes have proved.—15. I remember Jeremiah how he, compared boldness:  to the Indian who changes not his skin, though it is of freedom.—16. For this too belongs to it, even to freedom:  that it binds itself by the will, as though by nature.—17. For so powerful is the will, in them that are free:  that it may be likened to nature, through its workings. ³⁵⁴

Footnotes

216:354

I.e. though boldness is matter of free will, it becomes a second nature.