The grave itself is but a covered bridge
Leading from light to light through a brief darkness.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I hold that, since by death alone
God bids my soul go free,
In death a richer blessing is
Than all the world to me.

--Scheffler, tr. by Frederic Rowland Marvin.

DEATH

Fearest the shadow? Keep thy trust;
Still the star-worlds roll.
Fearest death? sayest, "Dust to dust"?
No; say "Soul to Soul!"

--John Vance Cheney.

THE TENANT

This body is my house--it is not I;
Herein I sojourn till, in some far sky,
I lease a fairer dwelling, built to last
Till all the carpentry of time is past.
When from my high place viewing this lone star,
What shall I care where these poor timbers are?
What though the crumbling walls turn dust and loam--
I shall have left them for a larger home.
What though the rafters break, the stanchions rot,
When earth has dwindled to a glimmering spot!
When thou, clay cottage, fallest, I'll immerse
My long-cramp'd spirit in the universe.
Through uncomputed silences of space
I shall yearn upward to the leaning Face.
The ancient heavens will roll aside for me,
As Moses monarch'd the dividing sea.
This body is my house--it is not I.
Triumphant in this faith I live, and die.

--Frederic Lawrence Knowles.

TO OUR BELOVED

It singeth low in every heart,
We hear it, each and all--
A song of those who answer not,
However we may call;
They throng the silence of the breast,
We see them as of yore--
The kind, the brave, the true, the sweet,
Who walk with us no more.

'Tis hard to take the burden up
When these have laid it down;
They brightened all the joy of life,
They softened every frown;
But, O, 'tis good to think of them
When we are troubled sore!
Thanks be to God that such have been,
Though they are here no more.

More homelike seems the vast unknown
Since they have entered there;
To follow them were not so hard,
Wherever they may fare;
They cannot be where God is not,
On any sea or shore;
Whate'er betides, thy love abides,
Our God, for evermore.

--John White Chadwick.

A DEATH BED

As I lay sick upon my bed
I heard them say "in danger";
The word seemed very strang