Ave Maria-The King's Singers

[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!