THERE IS NO DEATH THERE is no death! The stars go down There is no death! The dust we tread Shall change beneath the summer showers To golden grain, or mellow fruit, Or rainbow-tinted flowers. The granite rocks disorganize To feed the hungry moss they bear; There is no death! An angel form THERE IS NO DEATH He leaves our hearts all desolate, He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers; Transplanted into bliss, they now Adorn immortal bowers. Born unto that undying life, They leave us but to come again; With joy we welcome them—the same, Except in sin and pain. And ever near us, though unseen, For all the boundless universe Is life-there are no dead. E. Bulwer Lytton. THE DEATH OF DEATH AND did you know our old friend Death is dead? Ah me! he died last night; my ghost was there, And all his phantom friends from everywhere Were sorrowfully grouped about his bed. 66 "I die; God help the living now!" he said With such a ghastly pathos, I declare The tears oozed from the blind eyes of the air And spattered on his face in gouts of red. That glittered on us in that crazy whim The kind old sockets grew forever dim. J. Whitcomb Riley. TEACH US TO DIE WHERE shall we learn to die? Go, gaze with steadfast eye On dark Gethsemane, Or darker Calvary, Where, through each lingering hour, Most lowly and most high, Has taught the Christian how to die. When in the olive shade His long last prayer he pray'd, die. Dean Stanley. LIKE ONE WHO WALKETH IN A PLENTEOUS LAND LIKE one who walketh in a plenteous land, Through sunny meadows, where the summer bees Feed in the thyme and clover; on each hand Fair gardens lying, where of fruit and flower The bounteous season hath poured out its dower: Where saffron skies roof in the earth with light, And birds sing thankfully towards heaven, while he With a sad heart walks through this jubilee, walk I, Through my rich, present life, to what beyond doth lie. Frances Anne Kemble. |