’Tis Nature’s law in everything. The river seeks the sea; But not one droplet wandering Goes ever back to feed the spring. Such things are and must be. The gone is gone, the lost is lost, Fled irrevocably.
Old village on the lonely hill, Deserted by your own, Your spended lifelike mountain rill Has gone to swell the tide and fill Some sea unseen, unknown. Let this brave thought your comfort be, As thus you die alone.
OH, dear and friendly Death, End of my road, however long it be, Waiting with hospitable hands stretched out And full of gifts for me!
Why do we call thee foe, Clouding with darksome mists thy face divine? Life, she was sweet, but poor her largess seems When matched with thine.
Thy amaranthine blooms Are not less lovely than her rose of joy; And the rare, subtle perfumes which they breathe Never the senses cloy.
Thou holdest in thy store Full satisfaction of all doubt, reply To question, and the golden clews to dreams Which idly passed us by.
Darkness to tired eyes, Perplexed with vision, blinded with long day; Quiet to busy hands, glad to fold up And lay their work away.
A balm for anguish past, Rest to the long unrest which smiles did hide; The recognitions thirsted for in vain, And still by life denied.
A nearness, all unknown While in these stifling, prisoning bodies pent, Unto thy soul and mine, beloved, made one At last in full content.
Thou bringest me mine own, The garnered flowers which felt thy sickle keen, And the full vision of that Face divine, Which I have loved unseen.
Oh, dear and friendly Death, End of my road, however long it be, Nearing me day by day, I still can smile Whene’er I think of thee!
WE say, “The sun has set,” and we sorrow sore As we watch the darkness creep the landscape o’er, And the thick shadows fall, and the night draw on; And we mourn for the brightness lost, and the vanished sun.
And all the time the sun in the self-same place Waits, ready to clasp the earth in his embrace, Ready to give to all of his stintless ray; And ’tis we who have “set,” it is we who have turned away!
“The Lord has hidden his face,” we sadly cry, As we sit in the night of grief with no helper by. “Guiding uncounted worlds in their courses dim, How should our little pain be marked by him?”