No years can fill the vacant place
From which a heart of love has dropped;
Time's slow concretions may efface
The mark, but leave the pit unstopped.
And yet no needless sorrows mock
The famished soul's unfed desire;
In the dark hollows of the rock
Is nursed the gem of crystal fire!
We feel the void, and hardly know
With what a glory it is lined,
Till deeper thoughts have struck below,
That seem to make the wealth they find.
O heart we loved! these tears we shed
Dishonor not the faith we keep;
We weep because the form is fled
Which bore what bids us not to weep!
We miss him in the daily task,
We miss him in the evening cheer,
In vain our eyes look up and ask
In silence for a form not here.
We miss him in our very care
That made his failing strength more dear-
As clouded sunsets dye the air
With hues unknown to noon-tide clear.
Yet not in vain the longing gaze—
The outward reaching in the dark;
His soul has risen that we may raise
Our spirits level to his mark!
He has put off the visible state,
That all the love whereby our being
Is drawn to him may sublimate
Our vision to the inward seeing.
No backward step the soul shall know;
No loss shall touch its vital fire—
Now glowing through this clay below;
Now burning in the viewless choir!
It flings away the cumbering dust
For nobler flights in realms above,
On equal wings of hope and trust,
Bathed in the pure celestial Love!
A little while! it is not long—
A little while of doubt and fear,
Of wavering trust and sorrows strong—
And all the darkness shall be clear.
The showery April of our woe,
The fluctuant May of hope and dread,
In everlasting June shall glow
With flowers of love that never ??
Our lover’s ashes sleep in earth,
Or wake to life in grace and flower;
But his true soul, of honest worth,
That walked with us, survives the power
Of dissolution, still to cheer
Our hearts in life’s eternal march,
Whether we wait and labor here,
Or climb the zodiac’s burning arch!
George Shepard Burleigh
The Lesson of Loss