The falling snow a stainless veil doth cast
Upon the relics of the dying year—
Dead leaves and withered flowers and stubble sere—
As if it would erase the faded past;
So on our lives does death descend at last,
Hiding youth’s hopes and manhood’s purpose clear,
And memories faint, to dreaming age most dear,
Beneath its silence, blank and white and vast.
The sun shines out, and lo! the meadows lone
Flash into sudden splendor, strangely bright,
More fair than summer landscape ever shone;
Thus, gleaming through the storm clouds, faith’s clear light
Transforms death’s endless waste of silence white
To beauty passing all that life has known.
TRUST
I came, I go, at His behest,
So, fearing not and not distressed,
I pass unto that life unguessed.
Little the babe, at its first cry,
Knows of the scenes that near it lie;
Less still of that dim life know I.
But Love receives the babe to earth,
Soft hands give welcome at its birth;
And so I think, when I go forth,
There too shall wait, to cheer and bless,
Love, warm as mother’s first caress,
Strong as a father’s tenderness.
TOWARD SUNRISE
When, in old days, our fathers came
To bury low their dead,
Unto the far-off eastern sky
They turned the narrow bed.
They laid the sleeper on his couch
With firm and simple faith
That cloudless morn would surely come
To end the night of death;