W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895.

‘She Is Not Dead, but Sleepeth’

William Henry Furness (1802–1896)

THAT one so rich in promise,

So lovely and so pure,

Should thus be taken from us,

Oh, how shall we endure!

She is not dead, but sleepeth:

Why in your hearts this strife?

He who hath kept, still keepeth

The never-dying life.

And though that form must moulder

And mix again with earth,

In faith ye may behold her

In glory going forth.

For what to us seems dying

Is but a second birth,

A spirit upward flying

From the broken shell of earth.

We are the dead, the buried,

We who do yet survive,

In sin and sense interred—

The dead! They are alive.

Freed from this earthly prison,

They seek another sphere:

They are not dead, but risen!

And God is with them there.