THE PLACE
"I GO TO PREPARE A PLACE FOR YOU"
I.
O Holy Place, we know not where thou art!
Though one by one our well-beloved dead
From our close claspings to thy bliss have fled,
They send no word back to the breaking heart;
And if, perchance, their angels fly athwart
The silent reaches of the abyss wide-spread,
The swift white-wings we see not, but instead
Only the dark void keeping us apart.
Where did he set thee, O thou Holy Place?
Made he a new world in the heavens high hung,
So far from this poor earth that even yet
Its first glad rays have traversed not the space
That lies between us, nor their glory flung
On the old home its sons can ne'er forget?
Though one by one our well-beloved dead
From our close claspings to thy bliss have fled,
They send no word back to the breaking heart;
And if, perchance, their angels fly athwart
The silent reaches of the abyss wide-spread,
The swift white-wings we see not, but instead
Only the dark void keeping us apart.
Where did he set thee, O thou Holy Place?
Made he a new world in the heavens high hung,
So far from this poor earth that even yet
Its first glad rays have traversed not the space
That lies between us, nor their glory flung
On the old home its sons can ne'er forget?
II.
But what if on some fair, auspicious night,
Like that on which the shepherds watched of old,
Down from far skies, in burning splendor rolled,
Shall stream the radiance of a star more bright
Than ever yet hath shone on mortal sight—
Swift shafts of light, like javelins of gold,
Like that on which the shepherds watched of old,
Down from far skies, in burning splendor rolled,
Shall stream the radiance of a star more bright
Than ever yet hath shone on mortal sight—
Swift shafts of light, like javelins of gold,
