The Tree of Life

O how did we not remember the types of this Tree!
For of old they were shown forth in many and varied ways
in the saved and in the lost.
By a tree Noah was saved,
but the whole world, unbelieving, was destroyed.
Moses was glorified through one when he took a staff as a scepter,
but Egypt, with the plagues that came from it,
was drowned as though fallen into deep wells.
What it has now done, the Cross showed forth
of old in image. Why then are we weeping?
For Adam is going
again to Paradise.

Saint Romanos the Melodist, On the Life of Christ: Kontakia,
“On the Victory of the Cross: Stanza 13, Archimandrite Ephrem Lash (tr)