Littell's Living Age/Volume 135/Issue 1745/Dead, yet Speaking

by Dinah Maria Craik

DEAD, YET SPEAKING.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."

"I have been dying for years; now I shall begin to
live." These were almost the last words of the Rev.
James Drummond Burns, minister of the Presbyterian
Church at Hampstead, who died of consumption abroad,
in 1865, deeply beloved and lamented.

Dead, and alive again. Alive to us,
Who through the long, long lapse of years still mark
The after-glow thy sunset luminous
Threw back upon our dark.

Alive to God, and to his work divine,
Though in what sphere we know not, nor need know:
Content to follow those dear steps of thine,
And where thou goest to go.

The blessings of the happy and at rest,
The sorrowful, and those whose sorrows cease,
Blossom, like April daisies, on thy breast,
Sleeping the sleep of peace!

But far beyond all sound of earthly strife,
Or silent slumber 'neath this long-green sod,
Thou art passed, triumphant, into perfect life,
The soul's true life in God.

Sunday Magazine.