What power shall slay our living memories,
And who shall take from us what is our own?
So, when a shade of the last parting fell,
This thought gave peace, as he deep comfort hath
Who, thirsting, drinks cool waters from a well.
But soon I felt more near that fatal breath;
More near he drew, till I his face could tell,
Till then unseen, unknown—I looked on Death.
II
We know not where they tarry who have died;
The gate wherein they entered is made fast;
No living mortal hath seen one who past
Hither, from out that darkness deep and wide.
We lean on Faith; and some less wise have cried:
"Behold the butterfly, the seed that's cast!"
Vain hopes that fall like flowers before the blast!
What man can look on Death unterrified?—
Who love can never die! They are a part
Of all that lives beneath the summer sky;
With the world's living soul their souls are one;
Nor shall they in vast nature be undone
And lost in the general life. Each separate heart
Shall live, and find its own, and never die.
FATHER AND CHILD
Beneath the deep and solemn midnight sky,
At this last verge and boundary of time
I stand, and listen to the starry chime
That sounds to the inward ear, and will not die.
Now do the thoughts that daily hidden lie
Arise, and live in a celestial clime,—
Unutterable thoughts, most high, sublime,—
Crossed by one dread that frights mortality.
