Poems (Craik)/Mortality

by Dinah Maria Craik

For works with similar titles, see Mortality.

MORTALITY.

"And we shall be changed."

E dainty mosses, lichens gray,
 Pressed each to each in tender fold,
And peacefully thus, day by day,
 Returning to their mould;

Brown leaves, that with aerial grace
 Slip from your branch like birds a-wing
Each leaving in the appointed place
 Its bud of future spring;—

If we, God's conscious creatures, knew
 But half your faith in our decay,
We should not tremble as we do
 When summoned clay to clay.

But with an equal patience sweet
 We should put off this mortal gear,
In whatsoe'er new form is meet
 Content to reappear.

Knowing each germ of life He gives
 Must have in Him its source and rise,
Being that of His being lives
 May change, but never dies.

Ye dead leaves, dropping soft and slow,
 Ye mosses green and lichens fair,
Go to your graves, as I will go,
 For God is also there.