As the stars, which, one by one,
Lit their torches at the sun,
And across ethereal space
Swept each to its destined place,
So the soul’s Promethean fire,
Kindled never to expire,
On its course immortal sped,
Is not gone, and is not dead.
By a Power to thought unknown,
Love shall ever seek its own.
Sundered not by time or space,
With no distant dwelling-place,
Soul shall answer unto soul,
As the needle to the pole.
Leaving grief’s lament unsaid,
“Gone is gone, and dead is dead.”
Evermore Love’s quickening breath
Calls the living soul from death;
And the resurrection’s power
Comes to every dying hour.
When the soul, with vision clear,
Learns that Heaven is always near,
Never more shall it be said,
“Gone is gone, and dead is dead.”
THE SPIRIT TEACHER.
Far in the land of Love and Light,
Where Death’s cold touch can never blight
The buds most precious to the sight—
The Power Divine
Hath given to my fostering care,
A youthful band of spirits fair.
Thus are they mine.
Sweet blossoms from the earthly spring—
Weak fledglings with the untried wing—
Dear lambs—such as the angels bring,
With tenderest love,
From earthly storms and tempests cold,
Safe to the warm and sheltering fold,
In heaven above.
O, gentle mothers of the earth,
Who gave these precious spirits birth,
Your homes have lost their sounds of mirth
And childish glee;
But not in Death’s embrace they sleep—
Nay, gentle mothers, cease to weep—
They dwell with me.
There, ’mid the amaranthine bowers,
Through all the long, bright, gladsome hours,
Your loved ones tend their birds and flowers,
And often come
With gifts of love and garlands bright,
To gladden, with their forms of light,
Your earthly home.
Their gentle lips to yours are pressed,
Their heads are pillowed on your breast,
And in your loving arms they rest,
For they are given
By Him whose ways are ever kind,
As precious links of love, to bind
Your souls to heaven.