Character and Conduct Part 41

"I with uncovered head Salute the sacred dead, Who went and who return not. Say not so!

We rather seem the dead that stayed behind.

Blow, trumpets, all your exaltations blow!

For never shall their aureoled presence lack: I see them muster in a gleaming row, With ever-youthful brows that n.o.bler show; We find in our dull road their s.h.i.+ning track: In every n.o.bler mood We feel the orient of their spirit glow, Part of our life's unalterable good, Of all our saintlier aspiration: They come transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, Beautiful evermore, and with the rays Of morn on their white s.h.i.+elds of Expectation."

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

The Dead

SEPTEMBER 8

"And yet, dear heart! remembering thee, Am I not richer than of old?

Safe in thy immortality, What change can reach the wealth I hold?

What chance can mar the pearl and gold Thy love hath left in trust for me?

And while in life's long afternoon, Where cool and long the shadows grow, I walk to meet the night that soon Shall shape and shadow overflow, I cannot feel that thou art far, Since near at need the angels are; And when the sunset gates unbar, Shall I not see thee waiting stand, And, white against the evening star, The welcome of thy beckoning hand?"

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

The Dead

SEPTEMBER 9

"Lord, make me one with Thine own faithful ones, Thy Saints who love Thee, and are loved by Thee; Till the day break and till the shadows flee, At one with them in alms and orisons; At one with him who toils and him who runs, And him who yearns for union yet to be; At one with all who throng the crystal sea, And wait the setting of our moons and suns.

Ah, my beloved ones gone on before, Who looked not back with hand upon the plough!

If beautiful to me while still in sight, How beautiful must be your aspects now; Your unknown, well-known aspects in that light, Which clouds shall never cloud for evermore!"

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

Death

SEPTEMBER 10

"Most persons have died before they expire--died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted mansion. The fact of the tranquillity with which the great majority of dying persons await this locking of those gates of life through which its airy angels have been coming and going from the moment of the first cry, is familiar to those who have been often called upon to witness the last period of life. Almost always there is a preparation made by Nature for unearthing a soul, just as on the smaller scale there is for the removal of a milk tooth. The roots which hold human life to earth are absorbed before it is lifted from its place. Some of the dying are weary, and want rest, the idea of which is almost inseparable, in the universal mind, from death. Some are in pain, and want to be rid of it, even though the anodyne be dropped, as in the legend, from the sword of the Death-Angel. And some are strong in faith and hope, so that, as they draw near the next world, they would fain hurry toward it, as the caravan moves faster over the sands when the foremost travellers send word along the file that water is in sight.

Though each little party that follows in a foot-track of its own will have it that the water to which others think they are hastening is a mirage, not the less has it been true in all ages, and for human beings of every creed which recognised a future, that those who have fallen, worn out by their march through the Desert, have dreamed at least of a River of Life, and thought they heard its murmurs as they lay dying."

_The Professor at the Breakfast Table_, O. W. HOLMES.

Crossing the Bar

September 11

"Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea.

"But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.

"Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell When I embark;

"For, tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar."

TENNYSON.

Life after Death

SEPTEMBER 12

"If the immediate life after death be only sleep, and the spirit between this life and the next should be folded like a flower in a night slumber, then the remembrance of the past might remain, as the smell and colour do in the sleeping flower; and in that case the memory of our love would last as true, and would live pure and whole within the spirit of my friend until after it was unfolded at the breaking of the morn, when the sleep was over."

_Tennyson--a Memoir_, by his Son.

"Life! I know not what thou art, But know that thou and I must part; And when, or how, or where we met, I own to me's a secret yet.

"Life! we have been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;-- Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good Night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good Morning!"

A. L. BARBAULD.

Bearing Sorrow

SEPTEMBER 13

"It is dangerous to abandon oneself to the luxury of grief; it deprives one of courage, and even of the wish for recovery."

_Amiel's Journal._

"Its way of suffering is the witness which a soul bears to itself."

_Amiel's Journal._

"We must bury our dead joys And live above them with a living world."

GEORGE ELIOT.

Bearing Sorrow