“If ye loved me ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto my Father.”
COLD silent still
Repose: how deep: unbroken by a breath!
No beating pulse, no subtly-stirring will;
Calm sleep the sleep of death.
Those faithful eyes,
That, keeping vigil, spoke strong bate of sin
Are closed until the Lord Himself arise
To bring the glory in.,
Those lips that taught
Wise lessons, garnered through long hours of
pain,
Bear tranquil witness that the good they
sought
Was everlasting gain.
That even voice,
That fell like well-known music on the ear,
Through memory’s chambers echoes still,
“Rejoice!
Give thanks! yield not to fear.”
That furrowed face,
Deserted, index, lit with laith’s last smile,
Tells gravely of the Saviour’s grace for grata
Known through earth’s little while
Where is thy sting,
O Death? thy conquest, O thou conquered
Grave!
Tears flow, wounds bleed, but “Victory” we
sing,
The Lord is strong to save!
Now nevermore
Thy spirit falters in its yearning quest.
Thy home is reached, thy strangership is e’er;
Sweet toil, yet sweeter rest.
The Father’s heart,
Thy blessed refuge, is our shelter too;
We see thee still, are with thee where thou art,
Hid but from mortal view.
Gone unto God!
Gone to the Father, in His house to dwell;
Gone through the shadowed vale that Jesus
trod―
Beloved, it is well!
In Memoriam, 1869.