"Over the River"

If a star were confined into a tomb,

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Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that locked her up gives room,
She'll shine through all the sphere.

O Father of eternal life, and all

Created glories under Thee!

Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall
Into true liberty.

Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still as they pass:

Or else remove me hence unto that hill,

Where I shall need no glass.

Henry Vaughan [1622–1695]

“OVER THE RIVER”

OVER the river they beckon to me,

Loved ones who've crossed to the farther side, The gleam of their snowy robes I see,

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. There's one with ringlets of sunny gold,

And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue;
He crossed in the twilight gray and cold,

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view.
We saw not the angels who met him there,
The gates of the city we could not see:
Over the river, over the river,

My brother stands waiting to welcome me.

Over the river the boatman pale

Carried another, the household pet;

Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale,

Darling Minnie! I see her yet.

She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands,
And fearlessly entered the phantom bark;

We felt it glide from the silver sands,

And all our sunshine grew strangely dark.

We know she is safe on the farther side,
Where all the ransomed and angels be:
Over the river, the mystic river,

My childhood's idol is waiting for me.

For none return from those quiet shores,
Who cross with the boatman cold and pale;
We hear the dip of the golden oars,

And catch a gleam of the snowy sail;

And lo! they have passed from our yearning hearts,
They cross the stream and are gone for aye.
We may not sunder the veil apart

That hides from our vision the gates of day;
We only know that their barks no more

May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea;

Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore,
They watch, and beckon, and wait for me.

And I sit and think, when the sunset's gold
Is flushing river and hill and shore,
I shall one day stand by the water cold,

And list for the sound of the boatman's oar;
I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail,
I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand,
I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale,
To the better shore of the spirit land.
I shall know the loved who have gone before,
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be,
When over the river, the peaceful river,
The angel of death shall carry me.

Nancy Woodbury Priest [1836-1870]

RESIGNATION

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!

"

Resignation

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,
By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.

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,

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Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her;
For when with raptures wild

In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.

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.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882]

AFTERWARD

THERE is no vacant chair. The loving meet,
A group unbroken-smitten, who knows how?
One sitteth silent only, in his usual seat;

We gave him once that freedom. Why not now?

Perhaps he is too weary, and needs rest;

He needed it so often, nor could we

Bestow. God gave it, knowing how to do so best.
Which of us would disturb him? Let him be.

There is no vacant chair. If he will take

The mood to listen mutely, be it done.

By his least mood we crossed, for which the heart must ache,

Plead not nor question! Let him have this one.

Sometime

Death is a mood of life. It is no whim

By which life's Giver mocks a broken heart. Death is life's reticence. Still audible to Him, The hushed voice, happy, speaketh on, apart.

There is no vacant chair. To love is still

To have. Nearer to memory than to eye. And dearer yet to anguish than to comfort, will We hold by our love, that shall not die.

For while it doth not, thus he cannot. Try!
Who can put out the motion or the smile?
The old ways of being noble all with him laid by?
Because we love, he is. Then trust awhile.

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Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward [1844-1911]

SOMETIME

SOMETIME, when all life's lessons have been learned,
And sun and stars forevermore have set,

The things which our weak judgments here have spurned,
The things o'er which we grieved with lashes wet,

Will flash before us out of life's dark night,

As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue;
And we shall see how all God's plans are right,
And how what seemed reproof was love most true.

And we shall see how, while we frown and sigh,
God's plans go on as best for you and me;
How, when we called, He heeded not our cry,
Because His wisdom to the end could see.
And e'en as prudent parents disallow

Too much of sweet to craving babyhood,
So God, perhaps, is keeping from us now
Life's sweetest things, because it seemeth good.

And if, sometimes, commingled with life's wine,
We find the wormwood, and rebel and shrink,
Be sure a wiser hand than yours or mine
Pours out the potion for our lips to drink;