Book 2 — LINES.
Reading edition
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BY J. E. DOW.
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Ask not for life, ’tis vain at best,
A period fraught with bitter woe,
A gaudy fiction when ’tis blest,
A constant struggle here below;
But Death! it bears the weary home,
Where sin and sorrow cannot come.
To die in youth, to ’scape the pain
That like a shadow marks our way,
To die, aye ’tis to live again
In brighter regions far away;
Where unknown glories ceaseless roll
Their floods of pleasure o’er the soul.
We weep above the early dead,
And crown the scanty grave with flowers;
We feel affliction when we tread
Amid the churchyard’s silent bowers:
But could we hear the spirits’ song
How blithely should we move along?
Free’d from the mockery of earth,
In the Almighty’s glory drest,
How mean appears their spot of birth?
How beautiful their place of rest?
Their voices ring ’mid angel choirs,
And love in sweetness tunes their lyres.
Then ask not life, but joy to know
That sinless they in heaven shall stand;
That death is not a cruel foe
To execute a wise command.
’Tis ours to ask, ’tis God’s to give.—
We live to die—and die to live.