University of Virginia Library

TO A BEREAVED FRIEND.

God comfort you, my Friend, God comfort you!
How mighty, how immeasurable your loss
I can but dimly know; yet I have learned
That only the most precious pass so soon.
I could but stand Without, and dared not thrust
My hand betwixt the curtains of your grief.
I could not reach you sitting in the dark
Of that lone desert where the silence stuns,
And sound of sobbing would be kind relief.
But I would speak some word that with a touch
May make your cup of sorrow overbrim
In tears that suck the sting from out the soul.
I too have felt the gloom that brings heaven near;
The love whose kissings are all unreturned,
And longed to lie down with the quiet dead
And share their slow sweet rest. I too have known
This strain and crack of heart-strings, this wild whirl
And wallow of sense in which the soul seems drowned.
You are the Husband of an Angel, I
Have two sweet Babes in bliss. We are very poor
On earth, my Friend, but very rich in Heaven.
Two years ago you comforted my loss;
One year ago I sang your wedding song,
And now She is not! She who had only looked
On life through coloured windows of her dreams.
All in the softest, sweetest breath of life,
The bud of her dear beauty seemed to have blown,
Your one-year darling who but sprang, and died,
And left the fragrance of her memory,
A blessed memory; a most blessed hope!
She had the shy grace of a Woodland flower;
In her Love veiled his look with timid wings;
And her eyes deepened with a sadness rich,
As though the mountain-tops of heaven-touched thought
Made mirrored shadows in their lakes of light.
Only a brief while did she wear the mask
Of flesh that kept the fond immortal face
Without a stain of earth or soil of time;
And now her Nun-like Spirit takes the Veil
In Heaven's cloistral calm. Look up, my Friend,
And bravely bear the mantle of her pain,
Which fell from her for you to wear for her:
Look up, my Friend, and may one little glimpse
Of all her glory touch your tears with light!
Only in heaven can the dark grow starry,
Only from heaven comes the wished-for Dawn.
She liveth in the sight of Him who sees
You also; Ye are one still in God's eye,
That from His Picture of the Universe
Turns on us in whatever worlds we move.