The Laughable Stories Collected by Mar Gregory John

194
ON THE DEATH OF JOHN BAR-MA DANI.
The fruit of the heart, the life of life, the light of the
pupil of the eye,
The holy of holies, the pure in feelings, the new spirit,
Hast thou taken away from us; and our lament is one
of mourning.
Thou hast cast our crown to earth, thou hast overturned
our exalted horn.
125 Under thy protection it became springtime for us through-
out the year.
And even winter took upon itself the attribute of summer.
In the time of December as in the time of January
We possessed a rose without any hateful thing and
grapes on the vine.
No man among us ever drew nigh to the fig-tree
130 Without seeing it to be full of fruit, yea, richly dowered
therewith.
[Our] garden was like unto the Garden of Eden,
And, behold, without our father, it is like unto the
bottommost hell.
O father of truth, let all life perish except thy life,
And if I forget thee, let this my beloved right hand
forget me.
135 Through thy removal, behold, the Church hath become
filled with grief,
And through the want of the perfection which belongeth
to thee it hath become a defective thing.
That which belonged to thyself alone hath become a
strange form,
And to thee alone hath come the manhood of our Lord.
Tell me, O our father, where thy blessed habitation is,
HO And how the eye which hath become infirm can see
thee.
Though there fall to me the fiercest path of fire,