The Little Orphan
The day of Resurrection
The bells are ringing today
Elderly sit on the porch
While outside others stay
*
The children and young people
Come out to the road ready
They are going to break eggs
Now at the cemetery
*
The sweet mystical fragrance
of the Holy festal day
Can be felt from the incense,
from the flowers and the hay,
*
The orchards are being clothed
with a beautiful vesture
And everything now appears
On earth ever newer.
*
Nearby the altar table
of the wooden chapel
A little child carries
Oil and a candle,
*
He kisses the Holy Cross
Above a fresh grave standing
Then he kneels down and cries
sobbing.
*
When the bells begin to ring
with liveliness in its clang
the orphan next to the Cross
is sobbing with a great pang!
*
Being in very great pain
Completely immersed within,
From the ringing of the bells
He hears a voice so thin.
*
Do not cry today o child,
and do not be downtrodden
Because see I am with you,
Christ is risen!
*
It was the very sweet words
of his mother in the grave
Banishing all the sorrow
From his heart pierced by a stave.
*
He stood immediately,
With soul full of amazement
And he searches to find out
Who made this pronouncement
*
Then from the holy altar
in the icon screen smoke-filled
He sees the Lord smiling
with body resurrected.
*
His soul was illumined
by His face most kind
And forgetting all his pain
he said this in his mind:
*
Then if the Lord
here too resurrected
It means that my mother
with Him too awakened!
*
Thinking this way in his head,
he bowed with humility
And kissing the grave beneath
Towards home he ran quickly
*
By the hearth of his parents
alone, no one to cherish
Because his father, poor one
in battle he did perish.
*
He would sleep at the neighbors
and by day he would fly
To the home that was empty
and often he would cry.
*
Now on the Resurrection
again to his home coming
The little orphan began
once more bitterly sobbing.
*
But the bell can be heard
at the cemetery ringing
And again his mother’s voice
Can be heard sweetly saying:
*
Do not cry today o child
and do not be downtrodden
I am with you even here,
Christ is risen.
*
Since then our little orphan
No longer is weeping
And any sound of a bell
To him it is comforting.