Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By John Keble (17921866)The Burial of the Dead
THE DEEP knell dying down, the mourners pause, | |
Waiting their Saviour’s welcome at the gate; | |
Sure with the words of Heaven | |
Thy Spirit met us there, | |
And sought with us along the accustom’d way | 5 |
The hallow’d porch, and entering in beheld | |
The pageant of sad joy | |
So dear to Faith and Hope. | |
O hadst thou brought a strain from Paradise | |
To cheer us, happy soul, thou hadst not touched | 10 |
The sacred springs of grief | |
More tenderly and true, | |
Than those deep-warbled anthems, high and low, | |
Low as the grave, high as th’ Eternal Throne; | |
Guiding through light and gloom | 15 |
Our mourning fancies wild, | |
Till gently, like soft golden clouds at eve | |
Around the western twilight, all subside | |
Into a placid faith, | |
That even with beaming eye | 20 |
Counts thy sad honours, coffin, bier, and pall, | |
(So many relics of a frail love lost), | |
So many tokens dear | |
Of endless love begun. | |