It is interesting to note the circumstances under which the first and best stanza was conceived. The author was riding over the prairie on horseback when night overtook him. Orion was "riding in triumph down the western sky." The "subdued and tranquil radiance of the heavenly host" imparted a hopeful tinge to his somber meditations on life and death, and under the inspiration of the scene he composed the lines:
"There is no death; the stars go down
To rise upon some other shore;
And bright in heaven's jeweled crown
They shine forever more."
The next morning he wrote other stanzas, the last of which reads:
"And ever near us, though unseen,
The dear, immortal spirits tread;
For all the boundless universe
Is life—there are no dead."