"Alas," we cry, because God's ways
Seem so at variance with our own,
And grieving through the nights and days,
We see not that His love was shown
In gathering to His "Harvest Home"
Our lost one, from the grief to come.
Oh, tears! she will not have to weep!
Oh, Woes! she will not have to bear!
For her, who fell so soon asleep,
No furrowed face, no whitened hair.
And yet we would have given her these,
In lieu of heavenly victories.
How weak the strongest mortal love!
How selfish in its tenderness!
How God's angelic host above
Must wonder at our blind distress!
We see her still grave, dark and dim,
And they see only Heaven and Him.
Perpetual youth! oh, priceless boon!
Forever youthful: never old!
How can we think she died too soon?
What though life's story was half told?
Wiser than all earth's seers, to-day,
Is this fair soul, that passed away.
Magician, sage, philosopher,
With all their vast brain-wealth combined,
Are only babes, compared with her:
This soul, that left the "things behind"
And, "reaching to the things before,"
Gained God, through Christ, forevermore.
[IN MEMORY OF J. B.]
Brave heart, whose bed has now been made
A twelve month neath the grasses,
Checkered by sunshine and by shade,
Where every breeze that passes
Hushes its song and sighs along,
With sorrow in its cadence,
Not thinking how thy sainted brow
Glows with a Christly radiance.
Do spirits hover in the air?
Do the dear dead ones never
Float on the gentle zyphers near
Out of the vast forever!
Somehow to-day my thoughts will stray
To you, oh friend, in slumber!
You seem so near, I feel you here,
One of the angel number.
Oh, face I never looked upon!
Oh, quiet, dreamless sleeper!
How strange that when you journeyed on
With death, the mighty reaper,
I missed you so. Do angels know,
Up in the City's splendor,
When hearts on earth embalm their worth,
And are they glad, I wonder?