Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Charles FrancisRichardson

1078 After Death

WHEN I forth fare beyond this narrow earth,

With all its metes and bounds of now and here,

And brooding clouds of ignorance and fear

That overhung me on my day of birth,

Wherethrough the jocund sun’s perennial mirth

Has shone more inly bright each coming year

With some new glory of that outer sphere

Where length and breadth and height are little worth,

Then shall I find that even here below

We guessed the secret of eternity,

And learned in years the yearless mystery;

For in our earliest world we came to know

The master-lesson and the riddle’s key:

Unending love unending growth shall be.