Sweet brother, if I do not sleep

My eyes are flowers on your tomb

And if I cannot eat my bread

My fasts shall live like willows where you died

If in the heat I find no water for my thirst

My thirst shall turn to springs for you, poor traveler



Come, in your labor find a resting place

And in my sorrows lay your head

Brother, take my life and bread

And buy yourself a better bed

Take my breath and take my death

Buy yourself a better rest beneath the bells of Gethsemani



When all the men of war are killed

And flags have fallen into dust

Your cross and mine will tell men still

He died on each for both of us

That we might become the brothers of God

And learn to know the Christ of burnt men



And the children are ringing the bells of Gethsemani



For in the wreckage of your April Christ lies slain

He weeps in the ruins of my spring

The money of whose tears shall fall

Into your weak and friendless hand

And buy you back to your own land



The silence of whose tears shall fall

Like bells upon your alien tomb

Hear them and come, they call you home

And the children are ringing the bells of Gethsemani



Yes, if they had been there

They would have taken that crown of thorns from his hair

And stayed for a while in that place of despair

Ah, but what do I see, my brother is there

And he's ringing the bells of Gethsemani