HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. RESIGNATION. THERE is no flock however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there! There is no fireside howsoe'er defended, The air is full of farewells to the dying, The heart of Rachel for her children crying, Let us be patient! These severe afflictions But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise. We see but dimly thro' the mists and vapors; Amid these earthly damps What scem to us but sad, funeral tapers There is no Death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portals we call Death. 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, Day after day we think what she is doing Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, 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. HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. And though at times impetuous with emotion The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, We will be patient, and assuage the feeling, By silence sanctifying, not concealing, The grief that must have sway. A PASSING THOUGHT. O WHAT a glory doth this world put on For him who, with a fervent heart goes forth Under the bright and glorious sky and looks On duties well performed, and days well spent! For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings. He shall so hear the solemn hymn, that Death Has lifted up for all, that he shall go To his long resting-place without a tear. |