No mercy now can clear her brow
For this world's peace to pray;
For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,
Her woman's heart gave way,
And the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven
By man is cursed alway.
* * * * *
=_Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-._= (Manual, pp. 503, 505, 519, 531.)
=_367._= LINES TO RESIGNATION.
There is no flock, however watched and tended
But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howso'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!
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.
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