 | The Poetical Works of Caroline Bowles Southey |  |
179
So I was answered. Sermons upon Death
I had heard many: Lectures by the score
Upon Life's vanities; but never words
Of mortal preacher to my heart struck home
With such convicting sense and suddenness,
As the plain-spoken homily, so brief,
Of that unlettered man.
I had heard many: Lectures by the score
Upon Life's vanities; but never words
Of mortal preacher to my heart struck home
With such convicting sense and suddenness,
As the plain-spoken homily, so brief,
Of that unlettered man.
“That's what we are!”
Repeating after him, I murmured low,
In meek acknowledgment, and bowed the head
Profoundly reverential. A deep calm
Came over me, and to the inward eye
Vivid perception. Set against each other
I saw weighed out the things of Time and Sense,
And of Eternity; and oh! how light
Looked in that truthful hour the earthly scale!
And oh! what strength, when from the penal doom
Nature recoiled, in His remembered words—
“I am the Resurrection and the Life!”
Repeating after him, I murmured low,
In meek acknowledgment, and bowed the head
Profoundly reverential. A deep calm
Came over me, and to the inward eye
Vivid perception. Set against each other
I saw weighed out the things of Time and Sense,
And of Eternity; and oh! how light
Looked in that truthful hour the earthly scale!
And oh! what strength, when from the penal doom
Nature recoiled, in His remembered words—
“I am the Resurrection and the Life!”
| The Poetical Works of Caroline Bowles Southey | |