“Then the Reaper speaks: ‘Shall I have nothing fair and beautiful, must I have nothing but dry and bearded grain? I love these beautiful flowers; their fragrance is dear to me. Yet I will give them back again; some time you may see them again.’
“So Death looked at the little children with tears filling his kindly eyes. As they faded and drooped he kissed them gently and took them softly and sorrowfully into his arms. He was gathering these lovely innocents to take them to his Lord, where in Paradise they might be happy evermore, without any of the privations and sufferings that come to every one who grows up.
“As he wept, not for the little children, but for all who stay behind, he continued to speak smilingly through his tears to the sorrowing ones on earth:
“‘Christ needs these dear ones, these flowerets gay: to him they are tokens dear of the earth where once he played and sang on the hills of Judea. Can you not trust them to him who said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of God?” Have no fear; I am but moving them into the bright heavenly mansions, where they shall rest safely in the bosoms of the saints and angels.’
“And the mother, who loved them so, gave up her darling ones, for she saw, even through her tears, how happy they must be in their new home.
“‘O not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;’
it was a young and beautiful Angel, not the hideous Death in black robes and hood scarce hiding his bony head, that
“‘visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.’
“Does Death seem so terrible now? Although we must always see the vacant chair and know that a loved one has gone forever, can we not realize that it is we who suffer, and not the one who has been taken from among us? Is it not selfish to grieve?”
Shall we fear Death any more? When the parent has read the poem once more from beginning to end in silence, except as the soft words fall from his lips, will not the hearers feel inspired to be better and nobler boys and girls, men and women? Will darkness have more fear for them? Will they not then go to their rooms and lie down peacefully to sleep?