Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
VII. Death: Immortality: HeavenMeeting Above
William Leggett (18011839)I
Be each a blissful dwelling-sphere
Where kindred spirits reunite
Whom death hath torn asunder here,—
How sweet it were at once to die,
To leave this blighted orb afar!
Mixt soul and soul to cleave the sky,
And soar away from star to star.
Would seem the brightest world of bliss,
If, wandering through each radiant one,
We failed to meet the loved of this!
If there no more the ties shall twine
Which death’s cold hand alone could sever,
Ah, would those stars in mockery shine,
More joyless, as they shine forever!
That lights the eye or clouds the brow,
Proclaims there is a happier sphere
Than this bleak world that holds us now.
There, Lord, thy wayworn saints shall find
The bliss for which they longed before;
And holiest sympathies shall bind
Thine own to thee forevermore.
Where all the ransomed shall be found,
In thine eternal fulness blest,
While ages roll their cycles round.