There is no Death! What seems so is trans ition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, She is not dead,—the child of our affection,But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ Himself doth rule. In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, Not as a child shall we again behold her, In our embraces we again enfold her, But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, And beautiful with all the soul's expansion And though at times, impetuous with emotion And anguish long suppressed, The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, That cannot be at rest, We will be patient, and assuage the feeling We may not wholly stay; By silence sanctifying, not concealing, The grief that must have way. Longfellow. THE OPEN WINDOW. The old house by the lindens* I saw the nursery windows But the faces of the children, *Lime trees. The large Newfoundland house-dog They walked not under the lindens, But shadow, and silence, and sadness, The birds sang in the branches, But the voices of the children And the boy that walked beside me, Why closer in mine, ah! closer, Longfellow. A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE. This is the place. Stand still, my steed, Let me review the scene, And summon from the shadowy Past The forms that once have been. The Past and Present here unite Here runs the highway to the town ; There the green lane descends, Through which I walked to church with thee, Oh, gentlest of my friends! The shadow of the linden-trees A shadow, thou didst pass. Thy dress was like the lilies, And thy heart as pure as they; One of God's holy messengers Did walk with me that day. I saw the branches of the trees "Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares, On that sweet Sabbath morn. Through the closed blinds the golden sun Poured in a dusty beam, Like the celestial ladder seen By Jacob in his dream. And ever and anon, the wind, Sweet scented with the hay, Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves, That on the window lay. * But now, alas! the place seems changed; Thou art no longer here; Part of the sunshine of the scene With thee did disappear. Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart, Like pine-trees dark and high, Subdue the light of noon, and breathe |