That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,

Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight; -

That care and trial seem at last,
Through Memory's sunset air,
Like mountain ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;—

That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.

And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west winds play;
And all the windows of my heart

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;
Our Father's will,

Calling to him the dear one whom he loveth,
Is mercy still.

God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly
What he hath given;

They live on earth, in thought and deed, as truly
As in his heaven.

Up, then, my brother! Lo, the fields of harvest
Lie white in view!

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
Of everlasting Soul her strength abides;
From Nature's heart her mighty pulses leap,

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;
Thereby a law of Nature it became,
And lives unwithered in its sinewy youth,

When he who called it forth is but a name.

Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone;
The better part of thee is with us still;
The soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown,
And only freer wrestles with the Ill,

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,
And strength to perfect what it dreamed of here
Is all the crown and glory that it asks.

For sure, in Heaven's wide chambers, there is room
For love and pity, and for helpful deeds;
Else were our summons thither but a doom
To life more vain than this in clayey weeds.

Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand
Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning too;
Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand,
Then leap to thread the free, unfathomed blue.

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,
Who serve his creatures; when the funeral bell
Tolls for the dead, there's nothing left of all
That decks the scutcheon and the velvet pall
Save this. The coronet is empty show:
The strength and loveliness are hid below:
The shifting wealth to others hath accrued :
And learning cheers not the grave's solitude:
What's done, is what remains! Ah, blessed they
Who leave completed tasks of love to stay
And answer mutely for them, being dead:
Life was not purposeless, though Life be fled.

Caroline Norton.

The Lady of La Garaye.

En Memoriam.

F. D. B.

To pass through life beloved as few are loved,
To prove the joys of earth as few have proved,
And still to keep thy soul's white robe unstained,
Such is the victory which thou hast gained.

How few like thine, the pilgrim feet have come
Unworn, unwounded, to the heavenly home!
Yet He who guides in sorrow's sorest need,
As well by pleasant paths his own may lead.

And love, that guides where wintry tempests beat,
To thee was shelter from the summer heat.
What need for grief to blight, or ills annoy,
The heart whose God was her exceeding joy?

And so that radiant path, all sweet and pure,
Found fitting close in perfect peace secure;
No haste to go, no anxious wish to stay,
No childish terror of the untried way.

But wrapped in trance of holy thought and prayer,
Yet full of human tenderness and care,
Undimmed its lustre and unchilled its love,
Thy spirit passed to cloudless light above.

In the far North, where, over frosts and gloom,
The midnight skies with rosy brightness bloom,
There comes in all the year one day complete,
Wherein the sunset and the sunrise meet.

So, in the region of thy fearless faith,

No hour of darkness marked the approach of death;
But, ere the evening splendor was withdrawn,

Fair flashed the light along the hills of dawn.

Eliza Scudder.