University of Virginia Library


343

XXXVII
THE COMMEMORATION OF THE DEAD

The life of earth is an experience of things unfamiliar: the after life is a renewal of the old familiarity.

Restoration

As by his own fireside, in his own chair,
A man slips gently into sleep, and there
Starts up awake once more in his own room,
Recalling all things in the glow and gloom:
So when the draught of death in sleep he takes,
Perchance all suddenly the man awakes
To find him in the old familiar place—
That primal home, left for life's little space.

That which is not known is that which we have forgotten.