O, would not death be welcome too, to thee?
Yet there are loved ones round thy cheerful hearth;
O, these must sweetly bind thee still to earth!
We hold a chain outstretch’d from earth to Heaven,
By God’s own love to weary mortals given;
But every link removed, that shortens this,
Draws us the nearer to our home of bliss.
The moanful sighings of the wand’ring wind
Have a strange power to move my inmost mind,
And bring sweet thoughts of other days to me,