The Home-Gone

Ah why should bitter tears be shed 
    In sorrow o'er the mounded sod,
When verily there are no dead 
    Of all the children of our God ?

They who are lost to outward sense
    Have but flung off their robes of clay, 
And, clothed in heavenly radiance.
    Attend us on our lowly way. 
And oft their spirits breathe in ours
    The hope and strength and love of theirs, 
Which bloom as bloom the early flowers
    In breath of Summer's viewless airs. 
And silent Aspirations start
    In promptings of their purer thought, 
Which gently lead the troubled heart
    To joys not even Hope had sought.

While Sorrow's tears our eyes have wet,
    Shed o'er the consecrated dust, 
Too much our darkened souls forget
    The lessons of enduring Trust.
Not then we heed the hallowed joy
    Their presence would inspire in us, 
That Time or Fate cannot destroy,
    Or even Death make only thus. 
Not then we mark the cheering light
    Of their serene and love-lit eyes, 
Which look out from the infinite,
    Like stars from yon unbounded skies.

Though Sorrow brings her hidden good,
    And tears their dewy benison, 
Not always o'er the Spirit should
    Their darkness hide away the sun. 
The rain whose blessed coming nurst
    The sweetest flower of blushing Spring, 
If through its cloud no sunlight burst,
    Would blight her loveliest blossoming.

'Tis well the heart can loose its tide
    And gently pour the soothing tear, 
When joyful Hope is crucified
    In death-pangs of the loved and dear; 
But when from her sepulchral prison
    Her Angels roll the grief away, 
Then yield we to the new arisen,
    And own her everlasting sway.

With spirit-glance undimmed by tears,
    Look upward and forget the clod, 
For, brighter than yon million spheres,
    They wheel around the throne of God. 
And echoes from their choral song
    Come quivering down the blue expanse, 
Like murmurs from the insect throng
    That on the beams of sunset dance.

Let living Trust serenely pour 
    Her sunlight on our pathway dim,
And Death can have no terrors more, 
    But holy Joy shall walk with him.