Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
John Keble. 17921866620. Burial of the Dead
I THOUGHT to meet no more, so dreary seem’d | |
Death’s interposing veil, and thou so pure, | |
Thy place in Paradise | |
Beyond where I could soar; | |
Friend of this worthless heart! but happier thoughts | 5 |
Spring like unbidden violets from the sod, | |
Where patiently thou tak’st | |
Thy sweet and sure repose. | |
The shadows fall more soothing: the soft air | |
Is full of cheering whispers like thine own; | 10 |
While Memory, by thy grave, | |
Lives o’er thy funeral day; | |
The deep knell dying down, the mourners’ pause, | |
Waiting their Saviour’s welcome at the gate.— | |
Sure with the words of Heaven | 15 |
Thy spirit met us there, | |
And sought with us along th’ accustom’d way | |
The hallow’d porch, and entering in, beheld | |
The pageant of sad joy | |
So dear to Faith and Hope. | 20 |
O! hadst thou brought a strain from Paradise | |
To cheer us, happy soul, thou hadst not touch’d | |
The sacred springs of grief | |
More tenderly and true, | |
Than those deep-warbled anthems, high and low, | 25 |
Low as the grave, high as th’ Eternal Throne, | |
Guiding through light and gloom | |
Our mourning fancies wild, | |
Till gently, like soft golden clouds at eve | |
Around the western twilight, all subside | 30 |
Into a placid faith, | |
That even with beaming eye | |
Counts thy sad honours, coffin, bier, and pall; | |
So many relics of a frail love lost, | |
So many tokens dear | 35 |
Of endless love begun. | |
Listen! it is no dream: th’ Apostles’ trump | |
Gives earnest of th’ Archangel’s;—calmly now, | |
Our hearts yet beating high | |
To that victorious lay | 40 |
(Most like a warrior’s, to the martial dirge | |
Of a true comrade), in the grave we trust | |
Our treasure for awhile: | |
And if a tear steal down, | |
If human anguish o’er the shaded brow | 45 |
Pass shuddering, when the handful of pure earth | |
Touches the coffin-lid; | |
If at our brother’s name, | |
Once and again the thought, ‘for ever gone,’ | |
Come o’er us like a cloud; yet, gentle spright, | 50 |
Thou turnest not away, | |
Thou know’st us calm at heart. | |
One look, and we have seen our last of thee, | |
Till we too sleep and our long sleep be o’er. | |
O cleanse us, ere we view | 55 |
That countenance pure again, | |
Thou, who canst change the heart, and raise the dead! | |
As Thou art by to soothe our parting hour, | |
Be ready when we meet, | |
With Thy dear pardoning words. | 60 |