THERE IS NO DEATH

THERE is no death! The stars go down
To rise upon some fairer shore;
And bright in heaven's jewelled crown
They shine for evermore.

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;
The forest leaves drink daily life
From out the viewless air.

There is no death! An angel form
Walks o'er the earth with silent tread;
He bears our best loved things away,
And then we call them "dead.”

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,
The dear immortal spirits tread;

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.
And then he smiled the dear old bony smile

That glittered on us in that crazy whim
When first our daring feet leapt the defile
Of life, and ran so eagerly to him:
And so he smiled upon us, even while

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,
The Lord of grace and power,

Most lowly and most high,

Has taught the Christian how to die.

When in the olive shade

His long last prayer he pray'd,
When on the cross to heaven
His parting spirit was given,
He showed that to fulfil
The Father's gracious will,
Not asking how or why,
Alone prepares the soul to

die.

Dean Stanley.

LIKE ONE WHO WALKETH IN A

PLENTEOUS LAND

LIKE one who walketh in a plenteous land,
By flowing waters, under shady trees,

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,
Beholding how beyond this happy land
Stretches a thirsty desert of gray sand,
Where all the air is one thick, leaden blight,
Where all things dwarf and dwindle, so

walk I,

Through my rich, present life, to what beyond

doth lie.

Frances Anne Kemble.