Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.
The Seaside and the FiresideBy the Fireside. Resignation
T
But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe’er defended,
But has one vacant chair!
And mournings for the dead;
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!
Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.
Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven’s distant lamps.
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.
By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin’s pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.
In those bright realms of air;
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.
The bond which nature gives,
Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
May reach her where she lives.
For when with raptures wild
In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child;
Clothed with celestial grace;
And beautiful with all the soul’s expansion
Shall we behold her face.
And anguish long suppressed,
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
That cannot be at rest,—
We may not wholly stay;
By silence sanctifying, not concealing,
The grief that must have way.