There is No Death

HERE is no death. The stars go down

THER

To rise upon some fairer shore,

And bright in heaven's jeweled crown
They shine forevermore.

There is no death. The dust we tread

Shall change beneath the summer showers

To golden grain or mellow fruit,

Or rainbow-tinted flowers.

There is no death; the leaves may fall,

The flowers may fade and pass awayThey only wait through wintry hours, The coming of the May.

There is no death. An angel form

Walks o'er the earth with silent tread;

He bears our best loved ones away,

And then we call them "dead.”

He leaves our heart all desolate,

He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers; Transplanted into bliss, they now

Adorn immortal bowers.

There is no death! the choicest gifts
That heaven hath kindly lent to earth,

Are ever first to seek again,
The country of their birth.

And all things that for growth or joy
Are worthy of our love and care,
Whose loss hath left us desolate,
Are safely garnered there.

Born into that undying life,

They leave us but to come again;
With joy we welcome them the same
Except in sin and pain.

There is no death! although we grieve
When beautiful familiar forms
That we have learned to love are torn
From our embracing arms-

Although with bowed and breaking heart,
With sable garb and silent tread,
We bear their senseless dust to rest
And say that they are "dead."

They are not dead, they have but passed
Beyond the mists that blind us here,
Into the new and larger life

Of that serener sphere.

They have but dropped their robe of clay
To put their shining raiment on;
They have not "wandered far away”,
They are not "lost" or "gone".

Tho disenthralled and glorified,

They are still here and love us yet;

The dear ones they have "left behind",
They never can forget.

We feel upon our fevered brow

Their gentle touch, their breath of balm

Their arms enfold us and our hearts

Grow comforted and calm.

And ever near us, tho' unseen,

Their dear immortal spirits tread;

For all this boundless Universe

Is Life-there are no dead.

Arranged from Bulwer Lytton and J. L. McCreery.

Ο

Our Love

UR love is not a fading earthly flower:

Its winged seed dropped down from Paradise,
And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower,
Doth momently to fresher beauty rise:

To us the leafless autumn is not bare

Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green.
Our summer hearts make summer's fullness, where
No leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen:
For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie,
Love whose forgetfulness is beauty's death,
Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I
Into the infinite freedom openeth,

And makes the body's dark and narrow grate,
The wind-flung leaves of Heaven's palace gate.
Permission of
Houghton, Mifflin Co.

-J. R. Lowell.

When the Morning Breaks

LEAD

EAD kindly light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on.

The night is dark and I am far from home,—

Lead thou me on.

Keep thou my feet I do not ask to see

The distant scene,- -one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus nor prayed that thou
Should'st lead me on:

I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead thou me on.

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.
So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still
Will lead me on;

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent till
The night is gone;

And with the morn those angel faces smile

Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

-John Henry Newman.

Eternal Life

WE TALK of immortality; but there is a better phrase than that,—

the words of Jesus, "eternal life." That implies not mere dura

It sets

tion, but quality. It blends the present and the future in one. before us a state into which we are called to enter now, and into which as we enter we find ourselves at home in our Father's house, beyond the power of doubt and fear.

Mere continued existence,—what is it? That boulder yonder has existed for ages, a very eternity to the imagination; and it is only a boulder after all. One hour of throbbing, loving human life, is worth more than all its barren eternity. What is it to you or me, whether or not we go on living, if our lives are to be made up of petty and ignoble thoughts and aspirations? The real trouble with most of us is not doubt as to whether we shall live hereafter, but the fact that as yet we have hardly begun to live at all.

Nothing is so completely beyond the power of death as a noble love. Parting can shatter only its outward shell. Under that strange touch, love in its inmost recesses, kindles and glows with a divine fire. Whom of the living do we love as we love our dead? Whom else do we hold so sacredly and securely? Not as a memory of a long past, nothing in our present is so real as they, and toward our unknown future we go with a great and solemn gladness, beckoned by their presence. -Geo. S. Merriam.

G

His Ways

OD'S ways are not our ways, and dim and dark
Sometimes they seem, and sorrow-filled,

As if all joy had died, and Grief distilled

Her tears in liquid fire. Then, then, O hark!
God speaks! Be not afraid, my child,
Though tempests rave and storms break wild;
For I am near, behind the sullen dark,
My hand upon the helm, I guide thy bark.

-Eliza A. Otis.

Sweetheart

'AREWELL, sweetheart, my precious one,

FA

Goodby, but not forever;

My love for you no words can tell,

Nor long eternity can sever.

Oh, how I miss thy touch, thy smile,
The magic of thine eye,-

They changed this earth to heaven awhile,
Through comradeship, divine and high.

Did I not love thee, heart so dear?

Thou wert most wondrous sweet to me;
Thou wert my song, my life, my cheer,-
My soul found precious rest in thee.
The burden of this broken heart,

My shattered hopes, my fears,

I would to thee alone impart,

Through all the shadowed lonely years.

But thou, dear comrade soul, art gone,
While I, with aching heart,

Must wander on, too sad and lone,
Too desolate to bear my part.

And yet from me thou are not gone;
Deep down within my soul,

I hold thee, love thee still, my own,
And seek with thee, the heavenly goal.

So long and lovingly have we,

This blessed way been given—

The pledge of gladness yet to be,

Along the pathways of some heaven.

God was so very good to us,

He gave such wealth of love and joy,
I found such rest and peace with thee,
Would he that wondrous gift destroy?