Between Us and You

O Rich man in purple and fine linen draped With your lavish home beautifully landscaped Extravagant, faring suptuously everyday Please cast your eyes upon us beggars we pray And on Lazarus whom we have brung to you from the slums For he only desires of your table the fallen crumbs We have laid him here at the entrance of your estate For pity yet between us and you is the this shackled gate Now open up your heart from behind those closed doors For even the dogs have come out to lick Lazarus' sores But the man who could meet the need and supply the lack Never met him or took heed though he was always brought back And finally it came to pass that the beggar man died So the angels of Heaven carried him to Abraham's side Then the rich man died and was buried by gentlemen and ladies But being in torments he lifted up his eyes in Hades And seeing Abraham faraway with Lazarus by his side He addressed him as father for mercy aloud he cried In agony for Lazarus to be sent to him in hell fire After dipping his finger in water to cool his tongue, quench desire Son, remember how you received good things in your lifetime Living for worldly luxury all throughout your prime While Lazarus received evil things with no one to mourn or sing Or give Him a heartfelt eulogy after death gave its sting But now he has the comfort for which he was always yearning And you are sentenced to pain and sorrow in eternal burning His hope's realized, you're denied for all your days you will rue Besides all this a deep and wide gulf is fixed between us and you So that those who want to pass through from here to you cannot Neither can any crossover from there to this beautiful spot Of paradise as the Garden of God a bosom for His saints Who trusted in Him and now have no lack or complaints Nor will your prayers be heard though your beggings become fervent That Lazarus should resurrect (yet Lazarus is not your servant) To go witness to your five brothers and warn them to repent So that they will not also come into this place to suffer torment For they have Moses and the prophets them they should hear And change their minds to worship God with reverent fear For if they do not listen to Moses and what the prophets have said Neither will they be persuaded though someone rises from the dead.