Rampolli

VI.

LONGING AFTER DEATH

Into the bosom of the earth!
Out of the Light’s dominions!
Death’s pains are but the bursting forth
Of glad Departure’s pinions!
Swift in the narrow little boat,
Swift to the heavenly shore we float!

Blest be the everlasting Night,
And blest the endless Slumber!
We are heated with the day too bright,
And withered up with cumber!
We’re weary of that life abroad:
Come, we will now go home to God!

Why longer in this world abide?
Why love and truth here cherish?
That which is old is set aside—For
us the new may perish!
Alone he stands and sore downcast
Who loves with pious warmth the Past.

The Past where yet the human spirit
In lofty flames did rise;
Where men the Father did inherit,
His countenance recognize;
And, in simplicity made ripe,
Many grew like their archetype.

The Past wherin, still rich in bloom,
Old stems did burgeon glorious;
And children, for the world to come,
Sought pain and death victorious;
And, though both life and pleasure spake,
Yet many a heart for love did break.

The Past, where to the glow of youth
God yet himself declared;
And early death, in loving truth
The young beheld, and dared—
Anguish and torture patient bore
To prove they loved him as of yore.

With anxious yearning now we see
That Past in darkness drenched;
With this world’s water never we
Shall find our hot thirst quenched:
To our old home we have to go
That blessed time again to know.

What yet doth hinder our return?
Long since repose our precious!
Their grave is of our life the bourn;
We shrink from times ungracious!
By not a hope are we decoyed:
The heart is full; the world is void!

Infinite and mysterious,
Thrills through me a sweet trembling,
As if from far there echoed thus
A sigh, our grief resembling:
The dear ones long as well as I,
And send to me their waiting sigh.

Down to the sweet bride, and away
To the beloved Jesus!
Courage! the evening shades grow gray,
Of all our griefs to ease us!
A dream will dash our chains apart,
And lay us on the Father’s heart.
SPIRITUAL SONGS.

I

Without thee, what were life or being!
Without thee, what had I not grown!
From fear and anguish vainly fleeing,
I in the world had stood alone;
For all I loved could trust no shelter;
The future a dim gulf had lain;
And when my heart in tears did welter,
To whom had I poured out my pain?

Consumed in love and longing lonely
Each day had worn the night’s dull face
With hot tears I had followed only
Afar life’s wildly rushing race.
No rest for me, tumultuous driven!
A hopeless sorrow by the hearth!—
Who, that had not a friend in heaven,
Could to the end hold out on earth?

But if his heart once Jesus bareth,
And I of him right sure can be,
How soon a living glory scareth
The bottomless obscurity!