Where the bond is never severed ;-
Partings, claspings, sob and moan,
Midnight waking, twilight weeping,
Heavy noontide,-all are done:
Where the child has found its mother,
Where the mother finds the child,
Where dear families are gathered,
That were scattered on the wild:
Brother, we shall meet and rest
'Mid the holy and the blest!
Where the hidden wound is healed,
Where the blighted light re-blooms,
Where the smitten heart the freshness
Of its buoyant youth resumes:
Where the love that here we lavish
On the withering leaves of time,
Shall have fadeless flowers to fix on
In an ever spring bright clime:
Where we find the joy of loving,
As we never loved before,—
Loving on, unchilled, unhindered,
Loving once and evermore:
Brother, we shall meet and rest,
'Mid the holy and the blest!
Where a blasted world shall brighten
Underneath a bluer sphere,
And a softer, gentler sunshine
Shed its healing splendor here:
Where earth's barren vales shall blossom,
Putting on their robe of green,
And a purer, fairer Eden
Be where only wastes have been : Where a King in kingly glory,
Such as earth has never known,
Shall assume the righteous sceptre,
Claim and wear the holy crown:
Brother, we shall meet and rest,
'Mid the holy and the blest.
I miss the dear paternal dwelling,
Which mem'ry, still undimmed, recals,
A thousand early stories telling;
I miss the venerable walls.
I miss the chamber of my childhood,
I miss the shade of boyhood's tree,-
The glen, the path, the cliff, the wild-wood,
The music of the well-known sea.
I miss the ivied haunt of moonlight,
I miss the forest and the stream,
I miss the fragrant grove of noonlight,
I miss our mountain's sunset gleam.
I miss the green slope, where, reposing,
I mused upon the near and far,
Marked, one by one, each floweret closing,
Watched, one by one, each opening star.
I miss the well-remembered faces,
The voices, forms, of fresher days; Time ploughs not up these deep-drawn traces, These lines no ages can erase.
I miss them all, for, unforgetting,
My spirit o'er the past still strays,
And, much its wasted years regretting,
It treads again these shaded ways.
I mourn not that each early token
Is now to me a faded flower,
Nor that the magic snare is broken
That held me with its mystic power.
I murmur not that now a stranger
I pass along the smiling earth;
I know the snare, I dread the danger,
I hate the haunts, I shun the mirth.
My hopes are passing upward, onward,
And with my hopes my heart has gone;
My eye is turning skyward, sunward,
Where glory brightens round yon throne.
My spirit seeks its dwelling yonder;
And fate fore-dates the joyful day
When these old skies shall cease to sunder
The one dear love-linked family.
Well-pleased I find years rolling o'er me,
And hear each day-time's measured tread;
Far fewer clouds now stretch before me,
Behind me is the darkness spread.
And summer's suns are swiftly setting,
And life moves downward in their train,
And autumn dews are fondly wetting
The faded cheek of earth in vain.
December moons are coldly waning,
And life with them is on the wane;
Storm-laden skies with sad complaining,
Bend blackly o'er the unsmiling main.
My future from my past unlinking,
Each dying year untwines the spell;
The visible is swiftly sinking,
Uprises the invisible.
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