From the human love that fadeth,
In the falsehood or the tomb;
From the cloud that darkly shadeth;
From the canker in the bloom;
Thou hast pass'd to suns unsetting,
Where the rainbow spans the flood,
Where no moth the garb is fretting,
Where no worm is in the bud.
Let the arrow leave the quiver,
It was fashioned but to soar;
Let the wave pass from the river,
Into ocean evermore!
Mindful yet of mortal feeling,
In thy fresh immortal birth;
By the Virgin mother kneeling,
Plead for those beloved on earth.
Whisper them thou hast forsaken,
"Woe but borders unbelief!"
Comfort smiles in faith unshaken:
Shall thy glory be their grief?
Let one ray on them descending,
From the prophet Future stream;
Bliss is daylight never ending,
Sorrow but a passing dream.
O'er the grave in far communion,
With the choral Seraphim,
Chaunt in notes that hail reunion,
Chaunt the Christian's funeral hymn;—
Singing Halleluiah—singing
Halleluiah to the Three;
Where, vain Death, oh where thy stinging?
Where, O Grave, thy victory?
So rests the child of creeds before the Greek's,102
In our Lord's holy ground—between the walls
Of the grey convent and the verdant creeks
Of the sequester'd mere; afar the falls
Of the fierce torrent from her native vale,
Vex the calm wave, and groan upon the gale.
Survives that remnant of old races still,103
In its strange haven from the surge of Time?
There yet do Camsee's songs at sunset thrill,
At the same hour when here, the vesper chime
Hymns the sweet Mother? Ah, can granite gate,
Cataract, and Alp, exclude the steps of Fate?