Volume 19 / Part 1 — For Ever.

Those we love truly never die,

Though year by year the sad memorial-wreath—

A ring and flowers, types of life and death—

Are laid upon their graves.

For death the pure life saves,

And life all pure is love, and love can reach

From heaven to earth, and nobler lessons teach,

Than those by mortals read.

Well blest is he who has a dear one dead:

A friend he has whose face will never change,

A dear communion that will not grow strange:

The anchor of a love is death.

The blessed sweetness of a loving breath

Will reach our cheek all fresh through fourscore years:

For her who died long since, ah! waste not tears—

She's thine unto the end.

Thank God for one dead friend,

Whose mother-face no miles of road or sea

Or earthly bonds can hold apart from me—

First friend in life and death.

[pg 273]