That death seems but a covered way Wherein no blinded child can stray That care and trial seem at last, That all the jarring notes of life And so the shadows fall apart, I open to the day. J. G. Whittier. Death of a Sister. I will not mock thee with the poor world's common And heartless phrase, Nor wrong the memory of a sainted woman With idle praise. With silence only as their benediction, God's angels come Where, in the shadow of a great affliction, The soul sits dumb! Yet would I say what thy own heart approveth; Calling to him the dear one whom he loveth, God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly They live on earth, in thought and deed, as truly Up, then, my brother! Lo, the fields of harvest She lives and loves thee, and the God thou servest To both is true. J. G. Whittier. PART III. A GOOD LIFE. From the "Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing.” I do not come to weep above thy pall, And mourn the dying out of noble powers; The poet's clearer eye should see, in all Earth's seeming woe, the seed of Heaven's flowers. Truth needs no champions: in the infinite deep Through Nature's veins her strength, undying, tides. Peace is more strong than war, and gentleness, Where force were vain, makes conquest o'er the wave; And love lives on and hath a power to bless, When they who loved are hidden in the grave. No power can die that ever wrought for Truth; When he who called it forth is but a name. Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone; Thou livest in the life of all good things; What words thou spak'st for Freedom shall not die; Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath wings To soar where hence thy Hope could hardly fly. And often, from that other world, on this Some gleams from great souls gone before may shine, To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss, And clothe the Right with lustre more divine. Thou art not idle: in thy higher sphere Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks, For sure, in Heaven's wide chambers, there is room Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier; Let worthier hands than these thy wreath entwine; Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear, For us weep rather thou in calm divine! Well Done. J. R. Lowell Servant of God, well done! They serve God well, Caroline Norton. The Lady of La Garaye. En Memoriam. F. D. B. To pass through life beloved as few are loved, How few like thine, the pilgrim feet have come And love, that guides where wintry tempests beat, And so that radiant path, all sweet and pure, But wrapped in trance of holy thought and prayer, In the far North, where, over frosts and gloom, So, in the region of thy fearless faith, No hour of darkness marked the approach of death; Fair flashed the light along the hills of dawn. Eliza Scudder. |