FRIEND AFTER FRIEND DEPARTS"

FRIEND after friend departs:

Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts
That finds not here an end:
Were this frail world our only rest,
Living or dying, none were blest.

Beyond the flight of time,
Beyond this vale of death,
There surely is some blessed clime
Where life is not a breath,
Nor life's affection transient fire,
Whose sparks fly upward to expire.

There is a world above,

Where parting is unknown;
A whole eternity of love,
Formed for the good alone:
And faith beholds the dying here
Translated to that happier sphere.

"FRIEND AFTER FRIEND DEPARTS"

Thus star by star declines,

Till all are passed away,

As morning high and higher shines,
To pure and perfect day;

Nor sink those stars in empty night;

They hide themselves in heaven's own light.

James Montgomery.

A MEETING

I CAN recall so well how she would look-
How, at the very murmur of her dress
On entering the door, the whole room took
An air of gentleness.

That was so long ago, and yet his eyes

Had always, afterwards, the look that waits And yearns, and waits again, nor can disguise Something it contemplates.

May we imagine it? the sob, the tears,

The long, sweet, shuddering breath; then, on

her breast,

The great, full, flooding sense of endless years Of heaven, and her, and rest.

From "Songs of Rest."

"WE COULD NOT LOVE EACH

OTHER"

WE could not love each other: worlds
On worlds piled ever higher

Would part like banked clouds lightning-cleft
By our two souls' desire.

Life ne'er divided us: Death tried,

But could not—Love's voice fine

Came luring through the dark-then ceased,

And I am wholly thine.

Dinah Mulock Craik.

"HOW SHALL I KNOW THEE?"

How shall I know thee in the sphere that keeps The disembodied spirits of the dead,

When all of thee that time could wither sleeps And perishes among the dust we tread?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain,
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again

In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me

there

That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given?

My name on earth was ever in thy prayer ; Shall it be vanished from thy tongue in heaven?