A Farewell
Good-bye, old year, good-bye!
Gentle you were to many as to me,
And so we, meditating, sigh,
Since what hath been will be,
That you must die.
Hark! In the crumbling grey church tower,
Tolls the recording bell
The deeply-sounding solemnising knell
For your last hour.
How quietly you die!
No canonisëd Saint
E'er put life by
With less of struggle or complaint.
You seem to feel nor grief nor pain,
No retrospection vain,
As if, departing, you would have us know
It is not hard to go,
Since pang is none, but only peace, in Death,
And Life it is that suffereth.
Closer and clearer comes the last slow knell,
And on my lip for you awaits
That final formula of Fate's,
The low, lamenting, lingering word, Farewell!
For you the curved-backed sexton need not stir
The mould, for there is nothing to inter,
No worn integument to doff,
No bodily corruption to put off;
Begotten of the earth and sun,
And ending spirit-wise as you begun,
You pass, a mere memento of the mind,
Leaving no lees behind.
Hark! What is that we hear?
A quick-jerked, jocund peal,
Making the fretted church tower reel,
Telling the wakeful of a young New Year,
Young, but of lusty birth,
To face the masked vicissitudes of earth.
Let us, then, look not back,
Though smooth and partial was the track
Of the receding Past,
But through the vista vast
Of unknown Future wend intrepid way,
Framed to contend and cope
With perils new by vanished yesterday,
Whose last bequests to Man are Love, and
Faith, and Hope.
poem by Alfred Austin
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Related quotes
Farewell To The Old Year, 1863
Farewell, old year, 'the bourne' is near,
'Whence traveller ne'er returneth'-
Passing away from time for aye,
Thy life-light faintly burneth.
Farewell, old year, dark shapes of fear,
Grim spectres pale and gory,
Flitting around, with moaning sound,
Tell us thy sad war story.
Farewell, old year, we do not fear
Republic or Imperial-
If war inclined, they both shall find
We're rather tough material.
Farewell, old year, thy past career
Hath given both gloom and gladness;
Thou gave us peace, but no decrease
In human crime and madness.
Farewell, old year, the pall and bier
Thou saw us oft attending,
And heard oft-times the merry chimes
Of birth and wedlock blending.
Farewell, old year, a voice we hear,
How solemnly it falleth-
'All flesh is grass,' prepare to pass,
Ere long the Master calleth!
Farewell, old year, thy knell we hear
Through Time's dark arches sounding;
Wrapt in thy shroud, a dense, dark cloud
Thy solemn bier surrounding.
Farewell, old year, we still have cheer,
Though tinged with doubt and sorrow,
We leave thy urn and gladly turn
To give new year good morrow.
poem by Janet Hamilton
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Hoping Of Happy New Year
Hoping of happy New Year
The year has passed
The New Year has arrived
All the pains sadness and angriness has become past
All the happiness, sweetness and love has arrived
All the sickness, Madness and childness has gone
All the matureness, intelligence and hopes has arrived
My all the things are now my past
My all concentration is just focusing on future
New Year has arrived with hope
A hope of goodness in everything
A hope that my country will be in peace
A hope that all problems may come with a simple solution
May my all the relations become more sweet and loveable?
May my all pathetic memories be just past
May my life be quite simple
May my life be full of joy
Past year is a past don’t matter what was it
But the future is unknown and unseen
Don’t know that what will happen
Just hope that everything will be good and ok
So I hope that every hope will not just hope
Hope we can say next year with hope that Happy New Year
poem by Fatima Obaid
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The Unloved
These are the women whom no man has loved.
Year after year, day after day has moved.
These hearts with many longings, and with tears,
And with content; they have received the years
With empty hands, expecting no good thing;
Life has passed by their doors, not entering.
In solitude, and without vain desire,
They have warmed themselves beside a lonely fire;
And, without scorn, beheld as in a glass
The blown and painted leaves of Beauty pass.
Their souls have been made fragrant with the spice
Of costly virtues lit for sacrifice;
They have accepted life, the unpaid debt,
And looked for no vain day of reckoning. Yet
They too in certain windless summer hours
Have felt the stir of dreams, and dreamed the powers
And the exemptions and the miracles
And the cruelty of Beauty. Citadels
Of many-walled and deeply-moated hearts
Have suddenly surrendered to the arts
Of so compelling magic; entering,
They have esteemed it but a little thing
To have won so great a conquest; and with haste
They have cast down, and utterly laid waste,
Tower upon tower, and sapped their roots with flame;
And passed on that eternity of shame
Which is the way of Beauty on the earth.
And they have shaken laughter from its mirth,
To be a sound of trumpets and of horns
Crying the battle-cry of those red morns
Against a sky of triumph. On some nights
Of delicate Springtide, when the hesitant lights
Begin to fade, and glimmer, and grow warm,
And all the softening air is quick with storm,
And the ardours of the young year, entering in,
Flush the grey earth with buds; when trees begin
To feel a trouble mounting from their roots,
And all their green life blossoming into shoots,
They too, in some obscure, unblossoming strife,
Have felt the stirring of the sap of life.
And they have wept, with bowed heads; in the street
They hear the twittering of little feet,
The rocking of the cradles in their hearts.
This is a mood, and, as a mood, departs
With the dried tears; and they resume the tale
Of the dropt stitches; these must never fail
For a dream's sake; nor, for a memory,
The telling of a patient rosary.
poem by Arthur Symons
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O Death, O Death, Rock Me Asleep
O Death, O Death, rock me asleep,
Bring me to quiet rest;
Let pass my weary guiltless ghost
Out of my careful breast.
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Thy sound my death abroad will tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedy.
My pains, my pains, who can express?
Alas, they are so strong!
My dolours will not suffer strength
My life for to prolong.
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Thy sound my death abroad will tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedy.
Alone, alone in prison strong
I wail my destiny:
Woe worth this cruel hap that I
Must taste this misery!
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Thy sound my death abroad will tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedy.
Farewell, farewell, my pleasures past!
Welcome, my present pain!
I feel my torment so increase
That life cannot remain.
Cease now, thou passing bell,
Ring out my doleful knoll,
For thou my death dost tell:
Lord, pity thou my soul!
Death doth draw nigh,
Sound dolefully:
For now I die,
I die, I die.
O Death, O Death, Rock Me Asleep
O Death, O Death, rock me asleep,
Bring me to quiet rest;
Let pass my weary guiltless ghost
Out of my careful breast.
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Thy sound my death abroad will tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedy.
My pains, my pains, who can express?
Alas, they are so strong!
My dolours will not suffer strength
My life for to prolong.
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Thy sound my death abroad will tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedy.
Alone, alone in prison strong
I wail my destiny:
Woe worth this cruel hap that I
Must taste this misery!
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Thy sound my death abroad will tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedy.
Farewell, farewell, my pleasures past!
Welcome, my present pain!
I feel my torment so increase
That life cannot remain.
Cease now, thou passing bell,
Ring out my doleful knoll,
For thou my death dost tell:
Lord, pity thou my soul!
Death doth draw nigh,
Sound dolefully:
For now I die,
I die, I die.
poem by Anonymous Americas
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O death, rock me on sleep
O death! rock me on sleep,
Bring me on quiet rest;
Yet pass my guiltless ghost
Out of my careful breast:
Toll on the passing bell,
Ring out the doleful knell,
Let the sound of my death tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedy,
For now I die.
My pains who can express?
Alas! they are so strong,
My dolor will not suffer strength
My life for to prolong:
Toll on the passing bell, etc.
Alone, in prison strong,
I wail my destiny,
Wo worth this cruel hap that I
Should taste this misery:
Toll on the passing bell, etc.
Farewell my pleasures past,
Welcome my present pain;
I feel my torments so increase
That life cannot remain.
Cease now the passing bell,
Rung is my doleful knell,
For the sound my death doth tell,
Death doth draw nigh,
Sound my end dolefully,
For now I die.
poem by Anne Boleyn (1536)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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The Farewell Bell
The peals of the funeral bell echo to the calm sky
For someone today 'tis a final goodbye
And on some future date whenever that be
A similar bell will be ringing for me.
Free of the cares of life and of worry and fear
The farewell bell for him or for her the deceased one doesn't hear
By it's slow drawn out tolls it's not hard for to tell
That for someone the ringer rings the farewell bell.
The same fate for you and for me and for all
To the scythe of the Reaper we eventually must fall
Yet on a sunlit wattle the magpie does sing
And he care not if for one the farewell bell ring.
A beautiful morning the magpie in song
With the farewell bell he is singing along
And white butterflies dancing a beautiful sight
Around the blossoming trees in the warm sunlight
poem by Francis Duggan
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All For The Cause
Hear a word, a word in season,
for the day is drawing nigh,
When the Cause shall call upon us,
some to live, and some to die!
He that dies shall not die lonely,
many an one hath gone before;
He that lives shall bear no burden
heavier than the life they bore.
Nothing ancient is their story,
e’en but yesterday they bled,
Youngest they of earth’s beloved,
last of all the valiant dead.
E’en the tidings we are telling,
was the tale they had to tell,
E’en the hope that our hearts cherish,
was the hope for which they fell.
In the grave where tyrants thrust them,
lies their labour and their pain,
But undying from their sorrow
springeth up the hope again.
Mourn not therefore, nor lament it,
that the world outlives their life;
Voice and vision yet they give us,
making strong our hands for strife.
Some had name, and fame, and honour,
learn’d they were, and wise and strong;
Some were nameless, poor, unlettered,
weak in all but grief and wrong.
Named and nameless all live in us;
one and all they lead us yet
Every pain to count for nothing,
every sorrow to forget.
Hearken how they cry, “O happy,
happy ye that ye were born
In the sad slow night’s departing,
in the rising of the morn.
“Fair the crown the Cause hath for you,
well to die or well to live
Through the battle, through the tangle,
peace to gain or peace to give.”
Ah, it may be! Oft meseemeth,
in the days that yet shall be,
When no slave of gold abideth
’twixt the breadth of sea to sea,
Oft, when men and maids are merry,
ere the sunlight leaves the earth,
And they bless the day beloved,
all too short for all their mirth,
Some shall pause awhile and ponder
on the bitter days of old,
Ere the toil of strife and battle
overthrew the curse of gold;
Then ’twixt lips of loved and lover
solemn thoughts of us shall rise;
We who once were fools defeated,
then shall be the brave and wise.
There amidst the world new-builded
shall our earthly deeds abide,
Though our names be all forgotten,
and the tale of how we died.
Life or death then, who shall heed it,
what we gain or what we lose?
Fair flies life amid the struggle,
and the Cause for each shall choose.
Hear a word, a word in season,
for the day is drawing nigh,
When the Cause shall call upon us,
some to live, and some to die!
poem by William Morris
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When the bell tolls
At times when I hear
a church bell that tolls,
I know that there
is more to life
than just living.
On a Sunday
the bell tolls almost endlessly,
(like a alarm clock)
before the service begins.
At times when I hear
a church bell that tolls,
it rings for a funeral
and I am glad
that I’m alive.
At a wedding
the bell sings a joyful song
and everyone smiles at each other
and wait for the bride to appear.
In the dead of night
the bell tolls lonely
no one cares about
the time that it keeps,
as sleep creeps deeper
into everybody’s soul.
poem by Gert Strydom
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A Wife's Protest
1.
Like a white snowdrop in the spring
From child to girl I grew,
And thought no thought, and heard no word
That was not pure and true.
2.
And when I came to seventeen,
And life was fair and free,
A suitor, by my father's leave,
Was brought one day to me.
3.
“Make me the happiest man on earth,”
He whispered soft and low.
My mother told me it was right
I was too young to know.
4.
And then they twined my bridal wreath
And placed it on my brow.
It seems like fifty years ago —
And I am twenty now.
5.
My star, that barely rose, is set;
My day of hope is done —
My woman's life of love and joy —
Ere it has scarce begun.
6.
Hourly I die — I do not live —
Though still so young and strong.
No dumb brute from his brother brutes
Endures such wanton wrong.
7.
A smouldering shame consumes me now —
It poisons all my peace;
An inward torment of reproach
That never more will cease.
8.
O how my spirit shrinks and sinks
Ere yet the light is gone!
What creeping terrors chill my blood
As each black night draws on!
9.
I lay me down upon my bed,
A prisoner on the rack,
And suffer dumbly, as I must,
Till the kind day comes back.
10.
Listening from heavy hour to hour
To hear the church- clock toll —
A guiltless prostitute in flesh,
A murderess in soul.
11.
Those church- bells chimed the marriage chimes
When he was wed to me,
And they must knell a funeral knell
Ere I again am free.
12.
I did not hate him then; in faith
I vowed the vow “I will;”
Were I his mate, and not his slave,
I could perform it still.
13.
But, crushed in these relentless bonds
I blindly helped to tie,
With one way only for escape,
I pray that he may die.
14.
O to possess myself once more,
Myself so stained and maimed!
O to make pure these shuddering limbs
That loveless lust has shamed!
15.
But beauty cannot be restored
Where such a blight has been,
And all the rivers in the world
Can never wash me clean.
16.
I go to church; I go to court;
No breath of scandal flaws
The lustre of my fair repute;
For I obey the laws.
17.
My ragged sister of the street,
Marked for the world's disgrace,
Scarce dares to lift her sinful eyes
To the great lady's face.
18.
She hides in shadows as I pass —
On me the sunbeams shine;
Yet, in the sight of God, her stain
May be less black than mine.
19.
Maybe she gave her all for love,
And did not count the cost;
If so, her crown of womanhood
Was not ignobly lost.
20.
Maybe she wears those wretched rags,
And starves from door to door,
To keep her body for her own
Since it may love no more.
21.
If so, in spite of church and law,
She is more pure than I;
The latchet of those broken shoes
I am not fit to tie.
22.
That hungry baby at her breast —
Sign of her fallen state —
Nature, who would but mock at mine,
Has made legitimate.
23.
Poor little “love- child” — spurned and scorned,
Whom church and law disown,
Thou hadst thy birthright when the seed
Of thy small life was sown.
24.
O Nature, give no child to me,
Whom Love must ne'er embrace!
Thou knowest I could not bear to look
On its reproachful face.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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To The Chapel Bell
"Lo I, the man who erst the Muse did ask
Her deepest notes to swell the Patriot's meeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter task
For cap and gown to leave my minstrel weeds,"
For yon dull noise that tinkles on the air
Bids me lay by the lyre and go to morning prayer.
Oh how I hate the sound! it is the Knell,
That still a requiem tolls to Comfort's hour;
And loth am I, at Superstition's bell,
To quit or Morpheus or the Muses bower.
Better to lie and dose, than gape amain,
Hearing still mumbled o'er, the same eternal strain.
Thou tedious herald of more tedious prayers
Say hast thou ever summoned from his rest,
One being awakening to religious awe?
Or rous'd one pious transport in the breast?
Or rather, do not all reluctant creep
To linger out the hour, in listlessness or sleep?
I love the bell, that calls the poor to pray
Chiming from village church its chearful sound,
When the sun smiles on Labour's holy day,
And all the rustic train are gathered round,
Each deftly dizen'd in his Sunday's best
And pleas'd to hail the day of piety and rest.
Or when, dim-shadowing o'er the face of day,
The mantling mists of even-tide rise slow,
As thro' the forest gloom I wend my way,
The minster curfew's sullen roar I know;
I pause and love its solemn toll to hear,
As made by distance soft, it dies upon the ear.
Nor not to me the unfrequent midnight knell
Tolls sternly harmonizing; on mine ear
As the deep death-fraught sounds long lingering dwell
Sick to the heart of Love and Hope and Fear
Soul-jaundiced, I do loathe Life's upland steep
And with strange envy muse the dead man's dreamless sleep.
But thou, memorial of monastic gall!
What Fancy sad or lightsome hast thou given?
Thy vision-scaring sounds alone recall
The prayer that trembles on a yawn to heaven;
And this Dean's gape, and that Dean's nosal tone,
And Roman rites retain'd, tho' Roman faith be flown.
poem by Robert Southey
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The Dying Gipsy Smuggler
Wasted, weary, wherefore stay,
Wrestling thus with earth and clay?
From the body pass away;-
Hark! the mass is singing.
From thee doff thy mortal weed,
Mary Mother be thy speed,
Saints to help thee at thy need;-
Hark! the knell is ringing.
Fear not snow-drift driving fast,
Sleet, or hail, or levin blast;
Soon the shroud shall lap thee fast,
And the sleep be on thee cast
That shall ne'er know waking.
Haste thee, haste thee, to be gone,
Earth flits fast, and time draws on,-
Gasp thy gasp, and groan thy groan,
Day is near the breaking.
poem by Sir Walter Scott
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I hear and Reflect
A bell tolls sonorously
one single chime. Then silence reigns
It wakes me from my reverie.
Conscious again of aches and pains.
I had lost temporarily
in contemplation of the past
That single knell reminding me
Of the long years which quickly passed.
Before the years caught up with me
For old age does not come alone
It brings along infirmity.
Which hitherto you have not known.
When you are young you do not know
What future lies ahead of you
but as you live and learn and grow
You will become as others do.
Much more aware than what you were
of how your body will re- act.
To the stress and strain you bear.
That you must think before you act.
Gone is the energy of youth
You used to waste without a thought
You slowly come to learn the truth
That rude health can’t be sold or bought.
As long as I can hear that chime
which has disturbed my reverie
I can be certain that this time
The death knell does not ring for me.
Each day an opportunity
To do things I can still do
although slow and steadily.
My body still allows me to.
Although I pay in aches and pains
I do not think the price too high.
My interest in life remains.
I am too busy far, to die.
I know I will eventually
but do not let it worry me
It is the only certainty
the bell will toll one day for me.
23-Nov-08
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blog.mypace.com/poeticpiers
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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In The Harbour: Auf Wiedersehen
Until we meet again! That is the meaning
Of the familiar words, that men repeat
At parting in the street.
Ah yes, till then! but when death intervening
Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain
We wait for the Again!
The friends who leave us do not feel the sorrow
Of parting, as we feel it, who must stay
Lamenting day by day,
And knowing, when we wake upon the morrow,
We shall not find in its accustomed place
The one beloved face.
It were a double grief, if the departed,
Being released from earth, should still retain
A sense of earthly pain;
It were a double grief, if the true-hearted,
Who loved us here, should on the farther shore
Remember us no more.
Believing, in the midst of our afflictions,
That death is a beginning, not an end,
We cry to them, and send
Farewells, that better might be called predictions,
Being fore-shadowings of the future, thrown
Into the vast Unknown.
Faith overleaps the confines of our reason,
And if by faith, as in old times was said,
Women received their dead
Raised up to life, then only for a season
Our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain
Until we meet again!
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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At The Last.
The sky grows white with the moon,
And the sea yearns up to the night
As the soul to an unknown height,
Drawn thence by a starry rune.
Only a lost wind strays,
Like the breath of Passion blown
In the vault of the night unknown;
And the heart in me sobs and says:
'After a while we, too,
Shall rest as the stars above,
When we have no more to do
With the dream of life and love.'
O Time! thy feet that run
Over the hills and waves,
Over the cradles and graves,
From the first to the final sun!
Some day thou too shalt cease —
Some way there'll come to thee
Death's white tranquility,
The boon of an awful peace —
When the latest grief shall flow
With the surge that drifts away,
And the Night shall no more go
In her endless chase of Day.
Then shall the worn heart rest,
Then shall the sad Sea yearn
No more for the Moon's return,
Like a bird on its frozen nest
Dead, with her young ones dead
Under her breast on the bough,
Where nothing can wake them now —
Not the Dawn with its golden tread:
Where Death has been good to all,
Good to the mother and young,
And the dreams are beyond recall,
And the songs have all been sung.
So, at the last, to sleep!
So, at the last, to be
Still as the dead still sea!
Never to wake and weep,
Never to know Love's pain,
Never to yearn on for
What is gone for evermore;
To be as we were again
Ere we came o'er the bourne of birth,
Ere we knew of the fading flowers,
Of love and of life on Earth
And the hearts that were not ours!
poem by Robert Crawford
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Prayer (I)
Prayer the Church's banquet, angels' age,
God's breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth;
Engine against th'Almighty, sinner's tower,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-days' world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The Milky Way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,
The land of spices; something understood.
poem by George Herbert
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Philomel in London
Not within a granite pass,
Dim with flowers and soft with grass--
Nay, but doubly, trebly sweet
In a poplared London street,
While below my windows go
Noiseless barges, to and fro,
Through the night's calm deep,
Ah! what breaks the bonds of sleep?
No steps on the pavement fall,
Soundless swings the dark canal;
From a church-tower out of sight
Clangs the central hour of night.
Hark! the Dorian nightingale!
Pan's voice melted to a wail!
Such another bird
Attic Tereus never heard.
Hung above the gloom and stain--
London's squalid cope of pain--
Pure as starlight, bold as love,
Honouring our scant poplar-grove,
That most heavenly voice of earth
Thrills in passion, grief or mirth,
Laves our poison'd air
Life's best song-bath crystal-fair.
While the starry minstrel sings
Little matters what he brings,
Be it sorrow, be it pain,
Let him sing and sing again,
Till, with dawn, poor souls rejoice,
Wakening, once to hear his voice,
Ere afar he flies,
Bound for purer woods and skies.
poem by Edmund William Gosse
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Ghosts.
They look in with dim eyes
And faces sweet and sad,
Upon the life that dies —
Shades who have had
Their part in all things here,
The mortal hope and fear,
Till, as now from the bier
But one remove,
They hark the still hours chime
Within the Tower of Time
As to the sad, sweet rhyme
Of life and love.
They see more than we know,
They hear more than we may,
Who ever come and go
Like stars on a cloudy way:
And they grow sad to ken
The mortal life of men,
In the vesper light again
As they look in
And feel the phantom thrill
Of all the good and ill,
Of love and beauty still
And pain and sin.
And then with faces wan
They to each other turn,
Dreaming of what is gone,
E'en as they yearn
Perchance to lift the veil
With fingers thin and pale
Showing the no avail
Of so much here,
And how all things are cast
As in a dream at last,
When the future as the past
Shall disappear.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Happy Christmas
(john lennon, yoko ono)
And so this is christmas and what have you done
Another year over; a new one just begun
And so this is christmas, i hope you have fun
The near and the dear one, the old and the young
A merry merry christmas and a happy new year
Let's hope it's a good one without any fear
So this is christmas, for weak and for strong
The rich and the poor one, the road is so long
So happy christmas for black and for white
The yellow and red one, and stop all the fight
A merry merry christmas and a happy new year
Let's hope it's a good one without any fear
So this is christmas and what have we done
Another year over, a new one just begun
So happy christmas, i hope you have fun
The near and the dear one, the old and the young
A merry merry christmas and a happy new year
Let's hope it's a good one without any fear
Intstrumental
So this is christmas and what have you done
Another year over; a new one just begun
And so happy christmas; we hope you have fun
The near and the dear one, the old and the young
A merry merry christmas and a happy new year
Let's hope it's a good one without any fear
song performed by by Jimmy Buffett
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Burial
And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto
her, Weep not. And He came and touched the bier; and they that
bare him stood still. And He said, Young man, I say unto thee,
Arise.--St. Luke vii. 13, 14.
Who says, the wan autumnal soon
Beams with too faint a smile
To light up nature's face again,
And, though the year be on this wane,
With thoughts of spring the heart beguile?
Waft him, thou soft September breeze,
And gently lay him down
Within some circling woodland wall,
Where bright leaves, reddening ere they fall,
Wave gaily o'er the waters brown.
And let some graceful arch be there
With wreathed mullions proud,
With burnished ivy for its screen,
And moss, that glows as fresh and green
As thought beneath an April cloud. -
Who says the widow's heart must break,
The childless mother sink? -
A kinder truer voice I hear,
Which e'en beside that mournful bier
Whence parents' eyes would hopeless shrink,
Bids weep no more--O heart bereft,
How strange, to thee, that sound!
A widow o'er her only son,
Feeling more bitterly alone
For friends that press officious round.
Yet is the voice of comfort heard,
For Christ hath touched the bier -
The bearers wait with wondering eye,
The swelling bosom dares not sigh,
But all is still, 'twixt hope and fear.
E'en such an awful soothing calm
We sometimes see alight
On Christian mourners, while they wait
In silence, by some churchyard gate,
Their summons to this holy rite.
And such the tones of love, which break
The stillness of that hour,
Quelling th' embittered spirit's strife -
"The Resurrection and the Life
Am I: believe, and die no more."
Unchanged that voice--and though not yet
The dead sit up and speak,
Answering its call; we gladlier rest
Our darlings on earth's quiet breast,
And our hearts feel they must not break.
Far better they should sleep awhile
Within the Church's shade,
Nor wake, until new heaven, new earth,
Meet for their new immortal birth
For their abiding-place be made,
Than wander back to life, and lean
On our frail love once more.
'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose
Friends out of sight, in faith to muse
How grows in Paradise our store.
Then pass, ye mourners, cheerly on,
Through prayer unto the tomb,
Still, as ye watch life's falling leaf,
Gathering from every loss and grief
Hope of new spring and endless home.
Then cheerly to your work again
With hearts new-braced and set
To run, untired, love's blessed race.
As meet for those, who face to face
Over the grave their Lord have met.
poem by John Keble
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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