THERE is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there! There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair! The air is full of farewells to the dying, And mournings for the dead; The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, Will not be comforted! Let us be patient! These severe afflictions Not from the ground arise, But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise. We see but dimly through the mists and vapors, Amid these earthly damps; What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers, May be heaven's distant lamps. There is no Death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call Death. She is not dead, -the child of our affection, But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule. In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, Day after day we think what she is doing In those bright realms of air; Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, Behold her grown more fair. Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken The bond which nature gives, Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, May reach her where she lives. THE BUILDERS. Not as a child shall we again behold her; In our embraces we again enfold her, But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, And beautiful with all the soul's expansion And though at times impetuous with emotion And anguish long suppressed, The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, That cannot be at rest, We will be patient, and assuage the feeling We may not wholly stay; By silence sanctifying, not concealing, The grief that must have way. THE BUILDERS. ALL are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Nothing useless is, or low; Each thing in its place is best; Strengthens and supports the rest. For the structure that we raise, Time is with materials filled; Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build. Truly shape and fashion these; Leave no yawning gaps between; Think not, because no man sees, Such things will remain unseen. In the elder days of Art, Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the Gods see everywhere. Let us do our work as well, Both the unseen and the seen; Make the house, where Gods may dwell, Beautiful, entire, and clean. Else our lives are incomplete, Standing in these walls of Time, Broken stairways, where the feet Stumble as they seek to climb. Build to-day, then, strong and sure, And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow find its place. Thus alone can we attain To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky. |