"There is no death, 'tis but a shade,
In kindred dust the form is laid;
There is no death,—it is a birth,
A rising heavenward from the earth."
The next morning being very clear and cold, which Rosalind thought a favorable time to test the enduring qualities of the flowed discussed between Walter and herself the day before the storm, she hastened down stairs to look after it, when she met her mother, whose anxious countenance immediately arrested her attention. "Mother, is any thing the matter?" she abruptly enquired.
"Your father is very seriously ill," Mrs. Claremont replied in a tone of voice which unconsciously betrayed her secret fears to Rosalind's quick apprehension.
She immediately sought his presence, but only to listen to his incoherent words. He had passed a restless night with frequent paroxysms of pain, then showing signs of delirium. The frequent visits of the physician indicated his anxiety about the result, whose opinion Mrs. Claremont never asked, divining it too wen to subject herself to the torture of being told. Day after day passed without bringing any encouragement of his recovery, and the only solace of hoping against hope was finally merged in her overpowering desire that, if life must be despaired of, consciousness might be restored once more. Another glance of tender recognition, another word spoken in the familiar tone which was such sweet music to loving hearts, was a coveted boon that would soften the anguish of the stroke, and be a hallowed memory through the coming years.
After a night of intense solicitude, when life struggled with death, as the morning dawned under a most propitious sky, and the sun was slowly gilding a feathery cloud in the oriont, reason returned, and Mrs. Claremont thrilled with joy upon hearing her name called as of old. "What day is it?" he enquired. On being informed that it was Thanksgiving morning, he drew his wife nearer to him, and with that peculiar smile which always lent a charm to his happiest moments, said, "Could a more lovely morning be desired to blend the last of earth with the first of heaven? Mourn not for me. In a few short years you will come to share with me the fulness of a love, beside which ours here on earth, pure and perfect as we thought it, is but the opening bud to the full blown rose." As the eyes of the dying man rested on his darling Rosalind, who had scarcely left his bedside during his illness, a momentary pang disturbed his serenity, and he closed them as if in prayer. Pale as a statue, she had maintained the most rigid composure through it all, watching every motion, and listening to every sound, trying to catch the faintest ray of hope. Not a tear came to her relief through those long watchful hours. The shadow of death hovered about her like the spectral vision of a dream which it is the greatest joy of the waking thoughts to dispel, but which alas, chilling all the warmth of her nature, was now to be faced as a reality. Mr. Claremont opened his eyes again, and motioning her to kiss him, thus addressed her, "Trust your Heavenly Father as confidingly as you have trusted me and all will be well with you. If his discipline shall seem sterner than mine, remember that he has also as much greater power to reward." At thes.e words all her pent up anguish burst forth, and—she fell weeping on the bed. He raised his hand feebly to fondle for the last time the pet curl, one shorter and more silky than the rest, and giving the other to Walter, said.
"I go to the Promised Land,
Where all who meet shall part no more,
And those long parted meet again."
His voice faltered, his hand dropped from the curl that had twined itself around his finger, a smile of ineffable love, joy and peace passed over his features, and his spirit crossed the portals to the unseen world. He had gone to his Thanksgiving feast in heaven.
There is something deeply significant in the placid serenity of the death smile. In the tumultuous rush of emotions that crowd upon us at such a moment when every careless word and thoughtless act come like so many accusing spirits, we feel that all is forgiven, and nothing can disturb that peaceful repose. Is it not so?
In that realm of higher knowledge to which the spirit ascends in its nearer approach to the infinite Source of all wisdom and love, no dross of earthly corruption will be permitted to shroud its vision, or dim the glow of affection's golden chain whose indissoluble links bind mortality to immortality. It will know and feel only the power of that love which is stronger than death, broader and deeper than the perversities of human nature, and capable of diffusing its own immeasurable greatness over the remembrance of the errors of this life.
Beyond the objects of our outward sense, stronger than any tie of earthly recognition, deeper than any other emotion of the soul, stretches this invisible bond, invisible because immortal, and immortal because divine. The object of love may be taken from us, but the power of loving is increased thereby. That which was only lent is withdrawn that we may know how much more precious is that which has become a part of us—the emotion incorporated into the spiritual nature, which is ours through eternity.
"God gives us love. Something to love
He lends us: but when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone."
It may be owing to the intimate connection between body and spirit that the latter leaves such a serene and happy expression as that presented by the death smile, in the same manner as the emotions in life are reflected through the countenance.
To Walter this had an intense charm. "Look Rosa," said he, "he is trying to tell us how happy he is." He felt a sacred presence pervading the house, uniting heaven and earth, as it were, in the holy communion that attends the departing soul. To his hopeful, trusting nature, sorrow was a stranger. Life was a perpetual joy, springing, not from boyish thoughtlessness or youthful indifference, but from a maturity of mind, which with the growth of years, accepted its vicissitudes of good and ill as alike blessings sent by a Father's hand. Even death was but the birth of a new life, the blessed Liberator bringing to thousands the first great joy of existence.
When Rosalind's emotion had subsided, nothing seemed real. All was dreamy, shadowy. As they laid him beneath the pine-tree's shade, amid the glorious beauty of that Indian summer day, she felt the awakening vigor of a new life, as if spring-time had come, and was bursting forth in song amid the solemn arches of that majestic grove where so many had lain them down in their last sleep, but over whose spirits the grave had no power. Often as she had trodden those paths by her father's side and watched the day's soft decline through the wild lattice work of dense foliage which no human hand ever imitated, when the last rays of the setting sun sent his golden beams across the silvery waters to this chosen site of the honored dead, discoursing of the beauty which tree and shrub and tiny floweret lent to the impressiveness of the service to which it was consecrated, he had never seemed so near, nor the sky overhead appeared so glorious, nor such celestial voices floated round her as now. Millions of angels sung their anthems of welcome to him who had just yielded to the divine summons, which the inspiration of the hour wafted in voiceless yet audible strains to the quick ear of the soul's intuition.
"Dust to its narrow house beneath,
Soul to its rest on high."
"We shall miss him at the fireside circle, and in the crowded hall,
We shall miss him at the morning dawn, and when the twilight shadows fall,
When the noontide sun is shining, when the midnight moon is beaming.
And the stars in silence twinkle, o'er the calm of nature gleaming."
"Is that some of your composition?" asked Rosalind, in the first familiar tone of voice since the evening before her father was taken sick, when they indulged in so much joking.
"Yes, I composed that and another verse the night after father was carried away, which I will repeat if you like. I never felt so lonely as I did then. While he was in the house it seemed as if angels were present, hovering about him, and I could not realize that he was not here and would never speak to us again. Then I thought how selfish it was if we really believe what we profess to, to cling so to our friends here. Don't you think so mother?"
"Certainly it is. After watching by your father's bedside and witnessing his suffering, I cannot describe the sensation of relief I experienced when his spirit passed its last mortal agony and soared beyond the reach of earthly pain, which I try to keep before me. What must come to us all has only come to him a little sooner. Where's your poetry?"
"Yes, I miss thee dearest father, in every oft frequented place,
I am told of thy departure by every fond, familiar face,
Lone and pensive, sad and tearful sit I beside thy vacant chair,
While the drooping floweret whispers, I too have lost thy tender care."
"I had no idea that I had a poet brother," said Rosalind. For a few moments her interest in Walter's poetical attempt rallied her drooping spirit, but immediately a reaction came, when an overwhelming surge of grief bowed her like a bulrush, and she buried her face in the sofa and wept.
*****
There are some bold, inquiring spirits who will never accept reason or written evidence, as proof of those great truths which must become a part of the inner consciousness, to be felt as well as believed.
It is written, "Ask and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; "and if the soul occasionally reaches after knowledge that belongs not to this world, it is only anticipating what shall be revealed hereafter. When first we stand in the presence of a deep affliction, as if the fountains of life were suddenly unsealed, we are prompted by the rushing stream of emotion to accept the present and its vicissitudes only as we can dive into futurity and solve the problem of life. It is perhaps fortunate for most people that the healing effect of time, and the returning attractions of the world, divert them from such a field of speculation, as fruitless as it is perplexing.
The investigating mind of Rosalind was not to be satisfied with any thing short of the uttermost bound of human possibility, seeking from analogy with the most minute details of positive knowledge, the solution of those mysteries that belong to eternity.
This sudden diversion of the healthy vivacity of youthful feeling into the stern, rigorous channel of intellectual problems, soon induced a morbid state of mind. All former amusements and employments were dropped, her books neglected, and every incident associated with the past studiously avoided. Her companions gradually forsook her, youth being of too buoyant a nature to dwell long in the presence of sadness, for which she cared not.
All that a mother's unwearying love could invent, and a brother's untiring devotion devise, were powerless to divert her from her mournful reverie, but they did not despair. Trusting the inherent strength of her character to win the victory in time over present faults and inconsistencies, with a sweet, tender patience they waited.
Still she neither murmured nor made any outward display of the keen shaft that had wrenched every fibre of her being. It was a silent, tearless grief. The elastic step was gone, the merry laugh was hushed, and the lustrous beauty of her eyes had faded. In their stead came a listless indifference even in minor details to which she had been wont to bring as much of the activity of her mind as in the more important ones, while the serious decision with which she inflexibly resisted every attempt to interest her in any of the pursuits congenial to her tastes, contrasted painfully with her former enthusiasm.
There was no more kindling rapture in that face, as the hour of sunset drew nigh, and the silent majesty of the heavens awakened fresh emotions of the divine Omnipresence.
The stars looked down with a mournful light, the evening shadows exchanged the fantastic variety of her childhood's imagination for the gloomy phantoms of a vague, undefined sensation of dreariness; the moon, that shone in unclouded splendor through the whole week of the Indian Summer, which, owing to the unusual mildness of the season, had protracted its annual round until December, shed its pale, cold rays cheerlessly enough over copse and meadow, ravine and cliff. Every one knows the changed aspect of the whole material world, when one of the lights that radiated the inner self has merged into shadow, leaving us to grope our way in darkness, until the radiance of a new light, emerging from ourselves, shall penetrate the shadow and shine with the combined brightness of both. Even Spring, with its freshening gales and whispering zephyrs, when flower and bird, the springing grass and the murmuring brook, attest the birth of a new life from the icebound shroud of Winter, may suggest to the lonely mourner only the painful association of decay and death which hang like a sable pall over all familiar objects.
Not such was Mrs. Claremont's experience. Though many an hour of daily anguish and midnight prayer bore witness to the severe struggle through which she was passing, her abiding faith illumined the dark valley, and nature's sweet influences reminded her of the "Better Land," where sorrow and sickness cannot enter.
"Beyond the clouds and beyond the tomb."
Banishing her own grief, in the presence of her children she always wore a cheerful smile, and Rosalind often reproached herself for the stupid indifference with which she rewarded her thousand delicate attentions; but she treasured them in her mind, and marvelled at the great forbearance that never gave way to a word of impatience or rebuke. Her mother understood her temperament too well to attempt any futile parade of argument in order to convince her of her unreasonable grief, which would only intensify it by driving it more despairingly inward. Reason is always a comfortless comforter at such times. It may serve to regulate, but it was never intended to control the emotions. They bring us joy,—they bring us grief; and we have not the power to say, Why comest thou?
Submission will come at length, but it must come according to its own natural laws; it cannot be forced upon us by any mechanical art of the human intellect. It is the serene, spiritual child of prayer and faith, born of speechless suffering, but borne triumphant in the loving Father's arms to a world of joy and peace.
Only with silence as their benediction
God's angels come,
When in the shadow of a great affliction
The soul sits dumb."