University of Virginia Library

PARTING SONG.

The long day is closing,
Ah, why should you weep?
'T is thus that God gives
His beloved ones sleep.
I see the wide water
So deep and so black,—
Love waits me beyond it,—
I would not go back!
I would not go back
Where its joys scarce may gleam,—
Where even in dreaming
We know that we dream;
For though life filled for me
All measures of bliss,
Has it anything better
Or sweeter than this?
I would not go back
To the torment of fear,—
To the wastes of uncomfort
When home is so near.
Each night is a prison-bar
Broken and gone,—
Each morning a golden gate,
On,—farther on!
On, on toward the city
So shining and fair;
And He that hath loved me—
Died for me—is there.