Poems (Jackson)/Just out of Sight

by Helen Hunt Jackson

JUST OUT OF SIGHT.

I.

N idle reverie, one winter's day,I watched the narrow vista of a street,Where crowds of men with noisy, hurrying feetAnd eager eyes went on their restless way.Idly I noted where the boundary lay,At which the distance did my vision cheat, Past which each figure fading fast did fleet,And seem to meet and vanish in the gray.Sudden there came to me a thought, oft told,But newly shining then like flash of light,—"This death, the dread of which turns us so cold,Outside of our own fears has no stronghold;'T is but a boundary, past which, in white,Our friends are walking still, just out of sight!"

II.

"Just out of sight!" Ay, truly, that is all!Take comfort in the words, and be deceivedAll ye who can, or have not been bereaved!"Just out of sight." 'Tis easy to recallA face, a voice. O foolish words, and smallAnd bitter cheer! Men have all this believed,And yet, in agony, to death have grieved,For one "just out of sight," beneath a pall!"Just out of sight." It means the whole of woe:One sudden stricken blind who loved the light;One starved where he had feasted day and night;One who was crowned, to beggary brought low;All this death doeth, going to and froAnd putting those we love "just out of sight."