LINES WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF AN UNKNOWN FRIEND

We’ve never met; I’ve never pressed your hand, Nor caught the light of Friendship in your eyes; Yet bound by grief, between two graves we stand, And mingle tears, and hear each other’s sighs. The same dark wings have taken from each hearth The brightest jewel of the circle there, And poor Faith stumbles at the mound of earth, And feebly yields her place to wan Despair. The same dear Christ that took our little one, And laid her precious head upon His breast, In tender love called home your darling son To enter early his eternal rest. But who could stand beside the open tomb, And hear the clods fall on the coffin lid, And see deep underneath the earthen gloom, The dearest love of life forever hid? Could we not hear the grave’s red lips proclaim, “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” And realize that Death in Jesus’ name Is only rest from labor, pain, and strife? ’Tis hard to feel assured our sainted dead Are happy there, as we could make them here; We love them so we give them up with dread, And lay them in Christ’s arms with doubt and fear. Oh! for a faith that sees in all God sends The kindness of a father to his son; That prays, in every trial—if it ends In joy or grief, “Thy will, O Lord, be done.” Beneath the same dark shadow let us kneel, And lift our broken hearts in prayer to God That while He chastens, He will help us feel The wisdom of His purpose in the rod. We are not strangers now; from heart to heart The electric chords of mutual sorrow thrill. And clasping hands across the miles apart, We stand resolved, to “suffer and be still.”