"The dead abide with us! Though stark and cold Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still:-- They have forged our chains of being for good or ill And their invisible hands these hands yet hold. Our perishable bodies are the mould In which their strong imperishable will-- Mortality's deep yearning to fulfil-- Hath grown incorporate through dim time untold.
"Vibrations infinite of life in death, As a star's travelling light survives its star! So may we hold our lives, that when we are The fate of those who then will draw this breath, They shall not drag us to their judgment bar, And curse the heritage which we bequeath."
"We are learning, by the help of many teachers, the extent and the authority of the dominion which the dead exercise over us, and which we ourselves are shaping for our descendants.
"We feel, as perhaps it was impossible to feel before, how at every moment influences from the past enter our souls, and how we in turn scatter abroad that which will be fruitful in the distant future. It is becoming clear to us that we are literally parts of others and they of us."
"I with uncovered head Salute the sacred dead, Who went and who return not. Say not so!
We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. Blow, trumpets, all your exaltations blow! For never shall their aureoled presence lack: I see them muster in a gleaming row, With ever-youthful brows that nobler show; We find in our dull road their shining track: In every nobler mood We feel the orient of their spirit glow, Part of our life's unalterable good, Of all our saintlier aspiration: They come transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, Beautiful evermore, and with the rays Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation."
"And yet, dear heart! remembering thee, Am I not richer than of old? Safe in thy immortality, What change can reach the wealth I hold? What chance can mar the pearl and gold Thy love hath left in trust for me? And while in life's long afternoon, Where cool and long the shadows grow, I walk to meet the night that soon Shall shape and shadow overflow, I cannot feel that thou art far, Since near at need the angels are; And when the sunset gates unbar, Shall I not see thee waiting stand, And, white against the evening star, The welcome of thy beckoning hand?"