I have another epigram from Henrik Harder to share. This one is a sort of Milton-in-miniature, with a clever turn on the way in which our sins both separate us from God (through causing our expulsion from God’s presence) and unite us to him (through precipitating the Incarnation).
Harder’s poem consists of two elegiac couplets; my version consists of five lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter (i.e., five lines of Miltonic heroic measure). Hope you enjoy it.
Homo lapsus et restitutus.
Dum male prandet Adam pulchrisque expellitur hortis
Nos avulserunt crimina nostra Deo.
Dum Deus humanos, nos ut iuvet, induit artus,
Conjungunt nobis crimina nostra Deum.
“Man Fallen and Restored”
By evil eating, Adam is expelled
From lovely Eden: even so our crimes
Have severed us from God. By putting on
Our flesh, God saves us: even so our crimes
Join us to God, our Paradise regained.
