They lived and died, as men and women now
Are seen to live and die, in earthly sense;
They entered spirit life, and then the vow
Of love renewed was made, and on each brow
The blazing star of faith shone most intense;
They rose to higher spheres, and all aglow
They moved in Love's own aura, issuing hence
And forming round them in a glorious bow,
Until a sun began its radiance to throw.
11.
The elements of Being evermore
Joined in a closer union, as they must;
As they recede, they form a darksome shore
Like what remained when earthly life was o'er
And the God-Pair behind them left their dust;
Upon this outer sphere, surrounding all,
The only sphere where burneth selfish lust,
The inner heat of Life began to fall
And suns to burn and throw off earthly ball on ball.
12.
Thus came our universe with all its stars,
Its suns and planets—all that these contain;
Our earth rolls on among the planet-cars,
Freighted with life and death, with peace and wars,
With all the good and evil in its train;
And we, the tiny mortals struggling here,
Hoping and fearing, vexing heart and brain,
Have much our weary, drooping souls to cheer—
For what is mystery now will soon be plain and clear.
13.
Our destiny is that which is our God's,
Who has so many ages gone before;
The heights sublime whence he now smiling nods
One day we all shall reach, though great the odds
Now stretching out from hence to that bright shore;
For time and space are nothing; the same laws
That governed him, unfolding evermore
Those sprang from him, still working without pause,
Must lift us to his plane, as end doth follow cause.
14.
Meantime, he will go on as we come up,
Since our unfolding must depend on his;
For we must drink from out the self-same cup,
And at the self-same table we must sup;
But he, gone on beyond to higher bliss,
Will be our leader still, above all strife;
We from his realm, as now we do in this,
Like branches of the tree with sap grown rife,
Draw elements of fruit, which sprout new shoots of life.