A Thousand Winters

This at least behoves every man,
That he his soul's course should heed,
How awful it will be
When death arrives,
The kinship sunders,
Those that were together,
Body and soul.

Departed from men, the spirit,
In punishment or glory, death not discern
While him here in the world,
An earth vessel remains.

The anxious ghost shall come,
Always after seven nights,
A soul, to find the body,
That, from which it had been taken,
Then shall call so sad,
With a cold voice,
The spirit to that dust,
Words of a soul departed,
After it, from its body were led.

"Why hast thou tortured me? Foulness of earth!"
"Why dost thou torture me?
I art not the food of worms!"
"I within thee dwelt and I might not go
From, where with flesh,
I had invested with me
Thy sinful lusts oppressed,
So that to me full oft it seemed,
That it were a thousand winters
To thy death-day."