University of Virginia Library

The Dead—the mighty, quiet Dead!
Each in his moist and silent bed
Hath laid him down to rest,
While the freed spirit slowly fled
Unto the Patriarch's breast.
Perchance awhile it lingered near,
As loth to quit its earthly bier,
Until the funeral rite was done,
And the Church closed upon her son.

There is a place where spirits come,
Beneath the shrine to live,
A mystic place, a middle home,
Which God to them doth give.
What mortal fancy can disclose
The secrets of their calm repose?
It is a quietness more deep
Than deadest swoon or heaviest sleep,
A rest all full of waking dreams,
Of magic sounds, and broken gleams,
Outside the walls of heaven;
So near, the Souls may hear the din
Of thousand Angel choirs within,
And some dear prospect too may win,—
As, in the light of even,
Long absent exiles may have seen
The home, the woods, the orchards green,
Wherein their childish time was spent,
Ere on their pilgrimage they went;
And, as they look upon the show,
The thought of early love returns
Unto the straining eye that burns
With tears that age forbids to flow.
It is a rest, yet torment dire,
Repose within the lap of fire,
Because it is God's will,—
Another life of heavenly birth,
Which men live quicker than on earth,
Happy, resigned, and still:
A pardoning Father's first caress,
A glorious penal blessedness!
There then outside the heavenly gate
The souls beneath the Altar wait—
The Altar whereon Christ was laid,
True Meat for all the living made,
And Shelter for the Dead!
Their bodies are not yet like His,
Their souls not strong enough for bliss,
Or love unmixed with dread.
They cannot brook the vision yet,
Those radiant lights that never set;
And so the Son of Man hath thrown
His awful Veil o'er spirits lone.
O'ershadowed by His Flesh they lie,
As though behind a charmèd screen,
Hid from the piercing of the Eye
That may not look on things unclean!

Say, who are those that softly glide
Each pure and saintly soul beside,
Like Angels, only that they bear
More thought and sadness in their air,
As though some stain of earth did rest
Its pensive weight upon their breast,
And lodged a fearfulness within
That could not rise from aught but sin?
Nor ever on their silent face
Doth gentle mirth leave any trace,
Save when their downcast eye doth rest
Upon the Symbol on their breast,
Then are their features lit the while
With something like an earthly smile,
As though a thought were in their heart
Which it were rudeness to impart.
These are the righteous works of Faith,
Wrought in the fight with Sin and Death—
Dear shadows of each holy thing,
The goodly fruits and flowers that spring
From the rich Tree of Life;
Alms-deeds, and praise, and vigils past
In penitential prayer and fast,
Boldness in faith, and wrongs forgiven,
And self-denying toils for heaven,
And gentleness in strife.
These follow all the souls that come
Unto their rest and middle home;
And by their sides for ever stay
To witness at the solemn day,—
In fear as nigher still and nigher
Through the thin veils of cleansing fire,
They see the angels from above
Descend upon their tasks of love
The spirits to release,
To bear them to that Vision bright,
That throne in whose tremendous sight
The soul shall find eternal light
And everlasting peace.