On the Death of a Friend's Child

Death never came so nigh to me before,Nor showed me his mild face: oft had I musedOf calm and peace and deep forgetfulness,Of folded hands, closed eye, and heart at rest,And slumber sound beneath a flowery turf,Of faults forgotten, and an inner placeKept sacred for us in the heart of friends;But these were idle fancies, satisfiedWith the mere husk of this great mystery,And dwelling in the outward shows of things.Heaven is not mounted to on wings of dreams,Nor doth the unthankful happiness of youthAim thitherward, but floats from bloom to bloom,With earth's warm patch of sunshine well content'Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up,Whose golden rounds are our calamities,Whereon our firm feet planting, nearer GodThe spirit climbs, and hath its eyes unsealed.

True is it that Death's face seems stern and cold,When he is sent to summon those we love,But all God's angels come to us disguised;Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death,One after other lift their frowning masks,And we behold the seraph's face beneath,All radiant with the glory and the calmOf having looked upon the front of God.With every anguish of our earthly partThe spirit's sight grows clearer; this was meantWhen Jesus touched the blind man's lids with clay.Life is the jailer, Death the angel sentTo draw the unwilling bolts and set us free.He flings not ope the ivory gate of Rest,--Only the fallen spirit knocks at that,--But to benigner regions beckons us,To destinies of more rewarded toil.In the hushed chamber, sitting by the dead,It grates on us to hear the flood of lifeWhirl rustling onward, senseless of our loss.The bee hums on; around the blossomed vineWhirs the light humming-bird; the cricket chirps;The locust's shrill alarum stings the ear;Hard by, the cock shouts lustily; from farm to farm,His cheery brothers, telling of the sun,Answer, till far away the joyance dies:We never knew before how God had filledThe summer air with happy living sounds;All round us seems an overplus of life,And yet the one dear heart lies cold and still.It is most strange, when the great miracleHath for our sakes been done, when we have hadOur inwardest experience of God,When with his presence still the room expands,And is awed after him, that naught is changed,That Nature's face looks unacknowledging,And the mad world still dances heedless onAfter its butterflies, and gives no sign.'Tis hard at first to see it all aright;In vain Faith blows her trump to summon backHer scattered troop; yet, through the clouded glassOf our own bitter tears, we learn to lookUndazzled on the kindness of God's face;Earth is too dark, and Heaven alone shines through.It is no little thing, when a fresh soulAnd a fresh heart, with their unmeasured scopeFor good, not gravitating earthward yet,But circling in diviner periods,Are sent into the world,--no little thing,When this unbounded possibilityInto the outer silence is withdrawn.Ah, in this world, where every guiding threadEnds suddenly in the one sure centre, death,The visionary hand of Might-have-beenAlone can fill Desire's cup to the brim!

How changed, dear friend, are thy part and thy child's!He bends above thy cradle now, or holdsHis warning finger out to be thy guide;Thou art the nurseling now; he watches theeSlow learning, one by one, the secret thingsWhich are to him used sights of every day;He smiles to see thy wondering glances conThe grass and pebbles of the spirit world,To thee miraculous; and he will teachThy knees their due observances of prayer.Children are God's apostles, day by daySent forth to preach of love, and hope, and peace,Nor hath thy babe his mission left undone.To me, at least, his going hence hath givenSerener thoughts and nearer to the skies,And opened a new fountain in my heartFor thee, my friend, and all: and, O, if DeathMore near approaches meditates, and claspsEven now some dearer, more reluctant hand,God, strengthen thou my faith, that I may seeThat 'tis thine angel, who, with loving haste,Unto the service of the inner shrineDoth waken thy belovèd with a kiss!