from "The Victory of the Cross"

Exalted and glorious God of patriarchs and infants
the shame you freely accepted has become our pride.
Let all of us be lifted on high by your cross.

Let us string our hearts on its pegs
so we can tune the lyres of our lives to it
and sing to you, Lord of the Universe, the odes of Zion.

The Bible says a wooden ship from Tarshish
once supplied gold to Solomon every three years.
Now every day and hour, the wood of your cross
gives us riches beyond measure,
For it is the cross guides all of us
on the return to Paradise.

--"The Victory of the Cross" by Romanos the Melodist, 6th century

Susan alerted us to this wonderful hymn/poem, found in
R.J. Schork, Sacred Song from the Byzantine Pulpit: Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 1995. The entire poem is worth reading. It is a dialogue between Hades and Belial (the Devil) at the point of Christ's crucifixion. Romanos uses lots of interesting wood/tree imagery throughout, with many references to the OT. Isn't find this final image of the cross as a lyre amazing? Right now I can appreciate the "stretching"metaphor of heartstrings, and the idea that it is our lives which are to be tuned to the instrument.