Page:Poems Craik.djvu/50

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32
LIVING.
LIVING:
AFTER A DEATH.

"That friend of mine who lives in God."

O LIVE!
(Thus seems it we should say to our beloved,—
Each held by such slight links, so oft removed;)
And I can let thee go to the world's end,
All precious names, companion, love, spouse, friend,
Seal up in an eternal silence gray,
Like a closed grave till resurrection-day:
All sweet remembrances, hopes, dreams, desires,
Heap, as one heaps up sacrificial fires:
Then, turning, consecrate by loss, and proud
Of penury—go back into the loud
Tumultuous world again with never a moan—
Save that which whispers still, "My own, my own,"
Unto the same broad sky whose arch immense
Enfolds us both like the arm of Providence:
And thus, contented, I could live or die,
"With never clasp of hand or meeting eye
On this side Paradise.—While thee I see
Living to God, thou art alive to me.