Gone to meet the angel faces,
Where our lovely treasures are;
Gone awhile from our embraces,
Gone within the gates ajar."
There seemed to be no light left on earth; the sun was blotted out forever,
Oh glory of our youth that so suddenly decays!
Oh crimson flush of morning that darkens as we gaze!
Oh breath of summer blossoms that on the restless air
Scatters a moment's sweetness, and flies we know not where!
"A boat at midnight sent alone
To drift upon the moonless sea;
A lute whose leading chord is gone;
A wounded bird that hath but one
Imperfect wing to soar upon,
Are like me
Oh loved one, without thee;"
but the pitiful wailings of the twin girl babies called me back to earth again, and I took up the cares of existence, though they seemed greater than I could bear.
The largest church in the village was filled to overflowing with sincere mourners, for the sweet face of the departed had brought good cheer into many darkened households in our town. All sectarian barriers were for the time burned away by the flame of sympathy, and wonderful to tell, the Universalist clergyman who married us was allowed to pronounce the eulogy in an orthodox Congregational church.
When the organ pealed the requiem and the choir chanted the ever dear words of the hymn—
"Only waiting till the shadows are a little longer grown,"
and closing with the triumphant expression of a deathless faith; it required but a little imagination to see the light streaming through the open door of heaven, and to hear the responses of the angel choir from the great cathedral on high, and we wended our homeward way thinking not of "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," but of the disembodied spirit to be our guardian angel forevermore.
"Faith sees a star, and listening love hears the rustle of a wing." Infinitely sad was the passing of our beloved, to those left in the earth-life; but soothingly comes to us the song chanted by the choir invisible whenever a soul escapes the mortal coil: