ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.
"ANOTHER, and another, still succeeds!"
And one by one are from us called away,
Friends-valued, loved, and cherished many a day,
For noble thoughts and honourable deeds.
Yet reckon not that we have leant on reeds,
Which broke to pierce us, when, without dismay,
In such we have reposed that trust and stay
For which, e'en from the grave, their virtue pleads.
The loved are not the lost! though gone before:
To live in others' hearts is not to die!
Worth thus embalmed by faithful memory,
As dead-it were ungrateful to deplore;
Having outlived the grave is one proof more
That it was born for immortality!
"The dead are like the stars by day,
Withdrawn from mortal eye;
Yet unperceived they hold their way
In glory through the sky!"
YE are gone from the saddened hearth,
Your time-hushed tones are stilled;
Ye are gone froin the bowers of earth,
From the homes your presence filled.
Ye are gone to the spirits' land,
And we miss your looks of love;
Ye have joined that happy band
Who rejoice in light above.
And our spirits yearn below
For the music of your voice;
For our longing hearts would know
That which bids you rejoice.
Ye have done with sin and sorrow,
Ye are freed from care and pain;
Ye dread not the coming morrow,
Ye never can fear again.
Ye have laid down those mansions of clay
Around which sad memory hovers;
And your spirits have winged their way
To scenes their pure vision discovers.
The golden bowl is broken,
Looséd life's silver cord;
And your spirits, by angels spoken,
Rejoice with Christ the Lord!
Ye dwell in the pure light of love,
Ye dwell with the Lamb who was slain;
Ye dwell with the ransomed above,
And our loss is your infinite gain.
Oh! tell us, ye new-born immortals!
Were the friends of your pilgrim days,
When ye entered those heavenly portals,
Shut out from your wondering gaze?
Or do ye, on guardian wing,
Oft pause on your errands of love,
In our dull ears some accents to sing,
Some strain of that blest land above?
Would ye bid us look up, and rejoice;
For ye still by our path-way attend;
And though hushed to our sense your glad voice,
Your freed spirits with ours still blend.
The mother, whose glad song of praise
Flows to Him who hath guided her there,
As her voice the sweet anthem doth raise,
Forgets not the child of her prayer!
As the friend who so late left our side
Takes her place in that home of the blest,
Does she think of the woes that betide
Those who mourn in this land of un-rest?
And the glorified saint who hath borne
Life's burthen for many long years ;-
Doth the spirit in bliss ever turn
To the dwellers in this vale of tears?
Oh! ye long, amid glories untold,
For that fast-coming hour of re-union,
Which shall gather to Christ's happy fold
Quick and dead in un-ending communion!
Sweet is it thus at times to feel
Of blessed spirits, gone before us;
And deem, in hours of woe or weal,
That such, unseen, are hovering o'er us.
Still scattering, as from angel-wings,
Those amaranth wreaths that ne'er can wither; While strains from harps of golden strings
More sweetly whisper-" Come up hither!"
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