While if our dear and living dead,
With soft, still smiles and noiseless tread,
Should come, some day, to the old place,
There would not be a thought of dread
In their first rapture of embrace!
Oh, strangely blended joy and pain!
Death turned to naught, and life made vain,
Love’s shade and substance still at strife,
Who shall decide between the twain,
Or which is death, and which is life?