Elegies
Have life beyond this bounding atmosphere?
Yet, long-lost sister! can a soul like thine
Drop from the march of Nature's foremost line
So early, so unmissed? Can all her pride
In that rich promise be so cast aside?
Oh, long-lost brother! Shall the myriad years
Make plain to Man this mystery of tears?
Shall light come ever to this blind sad Earth
That knows not what is death nor what is birth?
It will, but not to me. Earth yet shall know,
By a new light, the secret of her past,
Shall ask no more, "Why do I suffer so?"
But smile in one great harmony at last.
And we, with faith in what we shall not see,
May call the dead whose tomb is in our heart,
To rise and take their own unconscious part
Of service in the glory that shall be.
For, could we link their memories to the chain
Of souls whose lights in long procession move
From Past to Future, so might yearning love
Behold their buried beauty live again,
To glide with solemn purifying glow
Along the endless way the ages go;
Might joy o'er something added—casting in
Such jewels—to the world's great treasure heap;
And here and there some living souls might win
To reverent fellowship with souls that sleep.
Yet, long-lost sister! can a soul like thine
Drop from the march of Nature's foremost line
So early, so unmissed? Can all her pride
In that rich promise be so cast aside?
Oh, long-lost brother! Shall the myriad years
Make plain to Man this mystery of tears?
Shall light come ever to this blind sad Earth
That knows not what is death nor what is birth?
It will, but not to me. Earth yet shall know,
By a new light, the secret of her past,
Shall ask no more, "Why do I suffer so?"
But smile in one great harmony at last.
And we, with faith in what we shall not see,
May call the dead whose tomb is in our heart,
To rise and take their own unconscious part
Of service in the glory that shall be.
For, could we link their memories to the chain
Of souls whose lights in long procession move
From Past to Future, so might yearning love
Behold their buried beauty live again,
To glide with solemn purifying glow
Along the endless way the ages go;
Might joy o'er something added—casting in
Such jewels—to the world's great treasure heap;
And here and there some living souls might win
To reverent fellowship with souls that sleep.
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