 | The path of sorrow, or, the lament of youth |  |
STANZAS—WHAT IS DEATH!
If a man die, shall he live again?—
Job, XV: XIV.
Job, XV: XIV.
I.
Death is the pure benevolence of heaven—A retribution from Jehovah's hands;
It is that sequestration God has given,
To rid us of satiety;—His hands
Have formed us,—and, from terrene strife,
His hands shall lift us to eternal life.
II.
Death is that loan of God's great gratitude,Which shortens life,—and pays man for his hire,—
By his redemption to infinitude
Of boundless bliss,—to which I do aspire;—
Beholding what his finite eyes can see,
Upon the mountain of Eternity.
III.
Death is that great relinquishment of strife,Which man's mortality has made him feel!
It is the soul's reprieve—the great relief
For earthly suffering;—and we can't conceal
The obsecration of a contrite heart,
When nature's summon bids the soul depart.
IV.
Death is that shadow to the human soul,Which darkens, for a while, its rainbow hue;
It does awake an idea, and unroll
To man, that words may not, and still be true;
And points fruitions far above the skies,
Where felicitous glory never dies.
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V.
Death is that mirror of Almighty God!In which we see the emblem of our weal;—
It is that resignation of our clod,
Which no man's dying eye can e'er conceal!
It is a gloom, beyond the which, is light,
The rainbow of a glory beaming bright.
VI.
Death is that kerchief that shall wipe the tears,Which lave the cheek of youth, and that old sire,
Whose days have dwindled in the midst of years!
Whose pearly rheum now quench reluctant fire!—
The silent vale where that Messiah trod—
The immortal path which leads to hills of God!
VII.
Death is that refuge from this thorny wild,Which God's own nature stamped on man;
It is an asylum for sorrow's child—
A hospital for woe! since life began—
A vast solution of the soul and brain,
Whose partnership no man shall feel again.
VIII.
Oh, death! thou steward, honest, faithful, just!Return my soul, by thy unfettered hands—
To God—mortality shall fade to dust!—
To that eternal bourne—Jehovah's lands!
For God has promised, he will soothe the sigh,
And lead the soul, to bliss, beyond the sky.
| The path of sorrow, or, the lament of youth | |