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Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,
Sweet helping hands are stirred,
And palpitates the veil between
With breathings almost heard.

The silence — awful, sweet, and calm
They have no power to break ;
For mortal words are not for them
To utter or partake.

So thin, so soft, so sweet they glide,
So near to press they seem,-
They seem to lull us to our rest,
And melt into our dream.

And in the hush of rest they bring
'T is easy now to see

How lovely and how sweet a pass
The hour of death may be!

To close the eye and close the ear,
Rapt in a trance of bliss,

And gently dream in loving arms
To swoon to that — from this.

Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep,
Scarce asking where we are,
To feel all evil sink away,

All sorrow and all care.

Sweet souls around us! watch us still,
Press nearer to our side,

Into our thoughts, into our prayers,
With gentle helpings glide.

Let death between us be as naught,
A dried and vanished stream;

Your joy be the reality,

Our suffering life the dream.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

TWO WORLDS

Two worlds there are. To one our eyes we strain,
Whose magic joys we shall not see again;

Bright haze of morning veils its glimmering shore.
Ah, truly breathed we there

Intoxicating air —

Glad were our hearts in that sweet realm of

Nevermore.

The lover there drank her delicious breath
Whose love has yielded since to change or death;
The mother kissed her child, whose days are o'er.
Alas! too soon have fled

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The merrysome maiden that used there to sing
The brown, brown hair that once was wont to cling
To temples long clay-cold: to the very core
They strike our weary hearts,

As some vexed memory starts
From that long faded land the realm of
Nevermore.

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It is perpetual summer there. But here
Sadly may we remember rivers clear,

And harebells quivering on the meadow-floor.
For brighter bells and bluer,

For tenderer hearts and truer
People that happy land the realm of
Nevermore.

Upon the frontier of this shadowy land
We pilgrims of eternal sorrow stand:

What realm lies forward, with its happier store
Of forests green and deep,

Of valleys hushed in sleep,

And lakes most peaceful? 'T is the land of
Evermore.

Very far off its marble cities seem

Very far off - beyond our sensual dream

Its woods, unruffled by the wild wind's roar ;
Yet does the turbulent surge

Howl on its very verge.

One moment and we breathe within the
Evermore.

They whom we loved and lost so long ago

Dwell in those cities, far from mortal woe

Haunt those fresh woodlands, whence sweet carolings soar.
Eternal peace have they ;

God wipes their tears away;

They drink that river of life which flows from

Evermore.

Thither we hasten through these regions dim,

But, lo, the wide wings of the Seraphim

Shine in the sunset! On that joyous shore
Our lightened hearts shall know
The life of long ago:

The sorrow-burdened past shall fade for

Evermore.

MORTIMER COLLINS.

SPIRITUAL COMMUNIONS

How pure at heart and sound in head,
With what divine affections bold,

Should be the man whose thought would hold
An hour's communion with the dead.

In vain shalt thou, or any, call

The spirits from their golden day,
Except, like them, thou too canst say,
My spirit is at peace with all.

They haunt the silence of the breast,
Imaginations calm and fair,

The memory like a cloudless air,
The conscience as a sea at rest:

But when the heart is full of din,
And doubt beside the portal waits,
They can but listen at the gates,
And hear the household jar within.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (In Memoriam).

THE FUTURE LIFE

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
And perishes among the dust we tread?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given;
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
And wilt thou never utter it in heaven?

In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,

And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?
The love that lived through all the stormy past,
And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,
Shall it expire with life and be no more?

A happier lot than mine, and larger light
Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will
In cheerful homage to the rule of right,
And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell

Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll;
And wrath has left its scar — that fire of hell
Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky,
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
The same fair, thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?
Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this
The wisdom which is love till I become
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?

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WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

OVER THE RIVER

OVER the river they beckon to me

Loved ones who 've passed to the further side; The gleam of their snowy robes I see,

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. There's one with ringlets of sunny gold,

And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue;

He crossed in the twilight gray and cold,

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view;
We saw not the angels who met him there,
The gates of the city we could not see
Over the river, over the river,

My brother stands waiting to welcome me!

Over the river the boatman pale

Carried another, the household pet;
Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale-
Darling Minnie! I see her yet.

She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands,
And fearlessly entered the phantom bark;

We felt it glide from the silver sands,
And all our sunshine grew strangely dark;
We know she is safe on the further side,
Where all the ransomed and angels be
Over the river, the mystic river,

My childhood's idol is waiting for me.

For none return from those quiet shores,
Who cross with the boatman cold and pale;
We hear the dip of the golden oars,

And catch a gleam of the snowy sail;

And lo! they have passed from our yearning heart,
They cross the stream and are gone for aye;

We may not sunder the veil apart

That hides from our vision the gates of day;
We only know that their barks no more

May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea,
Yet, somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore,
They watch, and beckon, and wait for me.

And I sit and think, when the sunset's gold
Is flushing river and hill and shore,
I shall one day stand by the water cold

And list for the sound of the boatman's oar;
I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail,
I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand;
I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale,
To the better shore of the spirit land.
I shall know the loved who have gone before,
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be,
When over the river, the peaceful river,
The Angel of Death shall carry me.

NANCY PRIEST WAKEFIELD.

ONLY WAITING

ONLY waiting till the shadows
Are a little longer grown;
Only waiting till the glimmer

Of the day's last beam is flown;
Till the night of earth is faded

From the heart once full of day;
Till the dawn of heaven is breaking
Through the twilight soft and gray.

Only waiting till the reapers

Have the last sheaf gathered home;

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