Here in an inn a stranger dwelt,
Here joy and grief by turns he felt;
Poor dwelling, now we close thy door,
The talk is o'er,

The sojourner returns no more.

Now of a lasting home possessed,
He goes to seek a deeper rest.
Good-night! the day was sultry here,
In toil and fear;

Good-night! the night is cool and clear.

Now open to us, gates of peace!
Here let the pilgrim's journey cease.
Ye quiet slumberers, make room
In your still home,

For the new stranger who has come.

How many graves around us lie!

How many homes are in the sky!

Yes, for each saint doth Christ prepare
A place with care;

Thy home is waiting, brother, there.

Passing Away.

The fragrance of the rose,

Whose dewy leaves in morning's light unclose,
Goes not more sweetly up

From its rich heart, as from an incense cup,
Than thy freed spirit from its earthly shrine
Passed with the still angel to the rest divine.

Oh no! Thou didst not die!

Thou hast but lain the soul's frail vesture by,
And soared to that pure height
Where day serene is followed by no night,
And where the discipline of mortal woe
No shadow over thee can ever throw.

F. Sachse.

Death never comes to such

With chillness in the mystery of his touch:
They gently pass away

As melts the morning star in golden day;

They leave the places they have known below,
And through the white gates of the morning go.

We would not call thee back

To the frail flowers that wither on our track,
Perhaps to have thy feet

Pierced by the thorns that we so often meet:
For thou art in that fairer world than ours
Where love mourns not the fading of the flowers.

Why should we weep for thee

When thy pure soul from every ill is free?
Our only tears should flow

For those, the loved, who linger still below,

From whom the light of thy dear smile is fled,
Who feel indeed that thou art with the dead.

We know the gloomy grave

Holds not the spirit which our Father gave;
That loving, lustrous light,

That made the sphere in which it moved so bright,
Is shining with a clear and quenchless flame,
Rekindled at the source from whence it came.

Thou art not dead! For death

Can only take away the mortal breath;

And life, commencing here,

Is but the prelude to its full career;

And Hope and Faith the blest assurance give — "We do not live to die! We die to live!"

Auld Lang Syne.

It singeth low in every heart,
We hear it, each and all,

A song of those who answer not,
However we may call ;

Anonymous.

For far and wide on either hand

There stretched a valley broad and fair,
With greenness flashing everywhere, —
A pleasant, smiling, home-like land.

Who knows, I thought, but so 'twill prove
Upon that mountain-top of death,
Where we shall draw diviner breath,
And see the long-lost friends we love.

It may not be as we have dreamed,
Not half so awful, strange, and grand;
A quiet, peaceful, home-like land,
Better than e'er in vision gleamed.

God's-Acre.

J. W. Chadwick.

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,

And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.
God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts

Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown The seed that they had garnered in their hearts, Their bread of life, alas! no more their own.

Into its furrows shall we all be cast,

In the sure faith that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.

Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume

With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth.

With thy rude pioughshare, Death, turn up the sod,
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;
This is the field and Acre of our God,

This is the place where human harvests grow!

H.W.Longfellow.

The wearer, not the garb, - the plume

Of the falcon, not the bars

Which kept him from those splendid stars.

"Loving friends! be wise, and dry

Straightway every weeping eye,
What ye lift upon the bier

Is not worth a wistful tear.

'Tis an empty sea-shell,

one

Out of which the pearl is gone;
The shell is broken, it lies there:
The pearl, the all, the soul, is here.
'Tis an earthen jar, whose lid
Allah sealed, the while it hid
That treasure of his treasury,

A mind that loved him; let it lie!
Let the shard be earth's once more,
Since the gold shines in his store!