-THE silver cord is loosed,� he said,
-The golden bowl is broken;
A few more prayers having been prayed,
A few more love-words spoken,
I shall turn my face unto the wall,
And sleeping, not be woken.�
-Is it a better place, my child,
That thou art gone unto?
Upon this earth that thou hast left
Hadst thou not much to do?
Would not thy joys have been a crowd
And thy troubles small and few?
-Beauty and rank and friends and wealth,
Genius and excellence,-
Could not all these, thy heritage,
Win thee from hastening hence?
Was the soul so much more unto thee
Than joys of mind and sense?
-And, bending with an English grace,
The ladies of our isle,
With their soft curls and their virgin eyes
Which look so sweet the while,
Had given thee for thy nobleness
A precious golden smile.
-These will not now be thine: thy life's
Appointed period
Being past o'er, thou liest on
The folded pinions broad
Of the Seraph who is bearing thee
Up through the sun to God.
-It has a solemn sound--to God-;
And strange high thoughts it weaves
Of a garden where the Tree of Life
Its mystic shadow gives,
And the music of the rapid worlds
Is the wind that stirs the leaves.
-Surely, it is a better place:
Wealth shuts not there his ken
From woes his heart yearns to assuage;
Nor noble origin
Wounds him by lessening trust betwixt
Him and his fellow-men.
-Nor friends die from him, but instead
Come to him where he is;
Nor Passion, rank with evil joys
And worse satieties,
Pouting her crimson lips at him
Layeth her cheek to his.
-Nor priests be there, like a bad dream
That at your bed's foot stands
All night (and yet it goes at last);
Nor moans of king-curst lands
Make his breast heave and his pale brow
To drop into his hands.
-But Love walks always with him now;
And Faith, not chained but free;
And Hope, bent forward, and with hair
Held back continually
To hear the distant chariot-wheels;
And wise calm Charity.�