Our Dead

In sweet return the Summer hours,
Bring bird songs and the joy of flowers;
A sky that bends with tenderer blue
O’er seas that shed a softer hue;
Dark shadowy woods and deepening grass
That ripple as the wind-waves pass;
But bring no more to eye and hand
The vanished of our broken band.

While all around us seems to shed
God’s benediction on our head;
And even the showers that darkly rain
Are rich with gifts of golden grain;
We dare not doubt His Providence
Who called our loved companions hence;
But dare to hope our very tears
Drop peals of bliss for coming years.

The grief that yielded dust to dust
Is rainbowed in diviner trust!
The widening gap that breaks our band
Is bridged with unseen hand in hand,
And through the tremolo of our song
A heavenly note strikes deep and strong,
Are a dream-like mystery!
Till now the lifted eye of Faith
Sees Life triumphant over Death!

A fair young mother looking down, 
Wears for chief jewel of her crown,
The pearl of deathless love for these —
The babes she dandled on her knees;
Her pure eyes tenderly meeting theirs
Bent up to waft their lisped prayers,
Their guardian angel, Mother’s Love,
Luring their faltering steps above.

There one long bowed with toil, perplexed
With busying cares that stung and vexed,
Restful at last, erect, serene,
Looks back upon this mortal scene;
Seeing the harmony that runs clear
Through all the tangled discords here,
His voice can join the notes that swell
The song, “He doeth all things well.”

And one—ah me! what heart can know
How wrestling with an unseen foe,
His heart was scarred? Now hushed in peace,
He feels the victory of release;
The voice that taught us how to raise
The hallowed songs of hope and praise,
Shall clearer peal the joy he dreamed 
In anthems of a soul redeemed!

And thou, who bore a prophet's name,
Upright and pure, untouched by blame,
Who still would lay on sorrow's hearse,
The offering of thy tender verse;
For this, that never heart was truer
To God and all God's suffering poor,
We lay our tribute on thy bier
Love's lily, moistened with a tear!

One more, a matron worn with stress
Of patient working helpfulness,
In faith sincere that dignified
Her lowly lot, she lived and died;
Through trials oft a breathing proof
God’s sunlight gilds the humblest roof!

Still pass the flying years, and still
The tireless Reaper works his will;
World worn and weary hearts find rest,
Their jangled chords, retuned, attest
God’s mercy through his angel, Death;
Life’s load in victory vanisheth;
We mourn them., but a cheering trust
Uplifts us o’er their crumbling dust.

And she who made her bed of pain
The nursery of eternal gain,
From suffering wrung such peace divine,
And all her patient heart’s sunshine,
We caught the light of purer skies,
Out of the dark deeps of her eyes;
Her life gone thither whence it sprang
Its sweetness keeps without the pang.

These are our living dead, whereby
We join the fellowship on high.