Responsive to those moans, he groaned.—No listening ears!

The dead he then addressed: “O people, chid in vain!

How often ’gainst you to the Lord I’ve wept, with pain!

The Lord me answered: ‘Patience have with their misdeeds;

To them give counsel still; not long will last those needs!’305

Remark I made: ‘With such misdeeds will counsel count?

As milk, kind counsel flows from love’s unsullied fount!’

The untold wrongs you’d heaped upon my patient head

Had curdled milk of counsel in my bosom’s stead.

The Lord replied: ‘A grace I’ll now on thee bestow;